A review by bookappeal
Turbulence by David Szalay

3.0

Each of the chapters in the book, named with the abbreviations of airports spanning the globe, focuses on a different character traveling between two airports. Every chapter is very, very short and the main character will not appear again, though a minor character will become the main character in the next story. Given these constraints. Szalay is very good at establishing characters with just a few words of description and/or dialogue. Most of the vignettes have no resolution and maybe that's the point. When traveling, we encounter people we will never see again and Szalay's characters aren't traveling for pleasure. They are forced to travel by serious, sometimes devastating circumstances, and Szalay gives the reader just a glimpse of how well the character will cope. The first character, afraid of flying, sums up the theme nicely. "What she hated about even mild turbulence was the way it ended the illusion of security..." Every character in Turbulence encounters a disruption in the security of everyday life and the stories serve as a reminder that we never really know with what challenges the people we meet on the plane, on the job, or in line at the store, are facing. If you need a resolved ending to enjoy a story, you will not enjoy Turbulence. If you like to be drawn in by an author's skillful writing, no matter what the outcome, this book holds many delights for you, even if many of the stories have a somber tone.