The Publishing Satire That Bites Back
Somewhere on Reddit there is a post explaining how to write a bestseller. Follow the trends, it advises. Dark is good. Sad sells. And the gold dust, the guaranteed prize-winner? Gay and sad together. Josh Silver’s adult debut, Fruit Fly, takes that advice literally, hands it to the worst possible person, and lets us watch what it costs. Fruit Fly by Josh Silver introduces Mallory Maddox, a one-hit novelist seven years past her moment, hiding in the bathroom at her own party playing Candy Crush while her husband soaks up the adoration downstairs. She has no second book, three counselling clients she is barely qualified to see, and a marriage that looks enviable from every angle except the inside. What she needs is a story. What she finds, on an app she downloads for research, is Leo: twenty-two, homeless, addicted, funny as an open wound, and exactly the kind of raw material the market is paying for. A Bestseller Recipe Written in Someone Else’s Blood The premise sits in obvious conversation with Yellowface, but Silver …
