In The Man Who Saw Everything, longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, narcissistic protagonist Saul is hit by a car twice: first in 1988, during the Cold War, then again in 2016. Both crashes take place at the same crosswalk, in front of Abbey Road Studios in London. In Saul’s understanding of his life—his loves, his time spent in East Berlin before the Wall fell, his father, his friends, his past—history blends with contemporary experience to create an unstable, uncertain mixture. Despite its title, Levy’s latest novel often subverts the male gaze, showing what it chooses to see, to manufacture and to erase.
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