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Fruit Fly

by Josh Silver

Authorship, ambition, and appropriation

Regular price $23.90 USD
Regular price $39.84 USD Sale price $23.90 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Bestseller

    USA Today bestseller

    The supplied metadata identifies Fruit Fly as a USA Today bestseller.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Authorship, ambition, and appropriation

After seven years of writer’s block, Mallory Maddox sees a possible route back to literary prominence in Leo, a young gay man struggling with addiction and survival. The novel’s central conflict turns on who has the right to tell a story—and what happens when a writer’s career ambitions become entangled with another person’s vulnerability. Framed as a satirical thriller, Fruit Fly connects questions of identity and representation with the pressures of authorship and public relevance. Its premise also sets up a tension between the story Mallory wants to write and the secrets that may complicate her plans.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in stories about literary ambition and the ethics of representation.
  • Readers seeking a thriller with satire and LGBTQ+ subject matter.
  • Readers drawn to fiction exploring addiction, vulnerability, and the ownership of personal stories.

Themes

Authorship and appropriationIdentity and representationLiterary ambitionAddiction and vulnerability

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

New York Times Bestseller

USA Today Bestseller

"A seething, hilarious, and wildly shrewd takedown of modern identity culture."
--Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear

"Impeccable, courageous and true."
--Ocean Vuong, author of The Emperor of Gladness

Go gay. Go sad. Go dark.

A washed-up author will stop at nothing to claw her way back to relevancy--even if it means appropriating a young gay man's tragic story.


Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer's block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she'll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike--and fast.

Enter Leo. He's a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He's vulnerable. He's enigmatic. He's exactly what Mallory has been looking for.

Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo's story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it's her story--she's the one who wrote it, after all.

But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story.

A razor-sharp satirical thriller, Fruit Fly will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang's Yellowface and Yomi Adegoke's The List.
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