2 Girls 1 Book: Fruit Fly by Josh Silver

A desperate author exploits a vulnerable young addict. Or is it the other way round?

Welcome back to 2 Girls 1 Book, a monthly cross-post where Ochuko Akpovbovbo and Pandora Sykes chat about a book via Google Docs. For our lucky number 13(th edition), we had planned to do Tayari Jones’s much anticipated new novel, Kin - BUT it’s waiting for Ochuko back in Portland, so we’ve gone for Josh Silver’s raucously fun novel, Fruit Fly.

Mallory, a once-celebrated literary darling, is now facing irrelevance. Desperate for a hit after years of writer’s block, she becomes obsessed with Leo, a young queer addict surviving on the margins of London, and quickly convinces herself that his life might be the raw material she needs to resurrect her career. What follows is an uncomfortable novel about exploitation, cultural appetites, shifting vulnerabilities and the strange incentives of contemporary publishing, where suffering becomes content and authenticity is something to be extracted, packaged, and sold.

As ever, we’d LOVE to hear from you in the Comments. For those of you who like to read along, next month we’ll be discussing Honey, by Imani Thompson.

I feel it’s important to state that I’m writing this from the most idyllic scene possible.

It’s a real hotdog or legs situation. Meanwhile, I’m elegantly perspiring in the London heatwave.

Excited to get into this one. Lots of thoughts. First up, I keep seeing it compared to Rebecca F. Kuang’s Yellowface. Do you think that fits?

I can see the comparisons. It’s droll, timely and sarcy - there’s a desperate author, a literary reputation at stake, lots of insider-y pretension (Mallory’s acclaimed novel is called Shallow Embers and someone is overheard at their house party saying, “Virginia Woolf was a fucking mood” which makes me laugh every time I think of it) - but it actually reminded me more of John Boyne’s novel, A Ladder to the Sky - which, if you have not read it, you should, as I think you would love it. That’s about a shameless young guy called Maurice who publishes a story he ripped off from an older celebrated writer, Erich - very Talented Mr Ripley. This story feels like the inversion of that. I preferred it to Yellowface. It felt fresher, more depth. You?

I will indeed be checking out A Ladder to the Sky. I agree to preferring this to Yellowface. There was a lot more depth - both characters were deliciously nuanced and the ending, though a little rushed, was a lot more satisfying. I read it cover to cover on a flight and boy, was it a page-turner. I really felt for the characters! I wanted them to be friends at the end.

Without giving too much away (or do we like giving things away? I vacillate on that), I do like that Leo wasn’t as naive as Mallory thought he was. Vulnerable, yes, and taken advantage of absolutely - but also aware enough to milk a situation. I will say that Mallory is so un-self aware, you can’t really imagine her being a wonderful novelist? Maybe that’s a failure of my imagination. I really liked the masterful character development of her hot husband, Ronan. Seemingly caring, slowly revealed to be coercive. And I loved the way her mother came through for Mallory. There were some really lovely moments of character development.

Agreed! I did not see Ronan coming at all. That was the one part I wished was explored a bit more actually. Mallory’s relationship with her husband, with her mom, and their relationship with each other. I actually found it quite hard to pinpoint what exactly was wrong with Mallory. How much of it was her vs. his influence on her? Can we talk about that a bit? What exactly was their deal?

I don’t think there was anything wrong with Mallory? Except some garden variety narcissistic tendencies, insecurity and writer’s block! I think Ronan was infantilising her, de-fanging her, trying to make her feel like she couldn’t cope, so that she would be entirely dependent on him. It’s like that Victorian short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. This woman is shut in a room with yellow wallpaper and told that she’s mad. It’s just Ronan’s form of coercion - the infantilising of her is a way of controlling her.

I thought so. I also get the feeling that their dynamic is the real cause of her writer’s block.

Oh totally.

I don’t think he ever actually wanted her to succeed, really. It’s clear he saw her as a threat - there could only be one star in the relationship and it had to be him.

It’s definitely the reason she hasn’t written for so long. The New York Times rave review of Shallow Embers that Mallory knows off by heart (lol) praises her “unhinged bravery” - in her desperation to find that bravery she decides to “go gay”, because “gay sells”. It’s mortifying, and shows the depths of her desperation. It’s not that she can’t write about a gay man, obviously people can write about different identities (imho, anyway) it’s how she comes to the story, which of course isn’t even her story, so much as it’s someone else’s life, and she approaches it without nuance, or permission. This bit made me laugh:

“I was - still am - up to date with queer trends and terminology. Of course I watch RuPaul and Queer Eye. Yas, mama! Slay! (I love Slay it’s so fun.)”

Soooo cringe! I usually don’t read books where the protagonist is a defacto “unhinged female character”. I just find it too hard, like I’m being chased by second-hand embarrassment on every page.

Hahaha, that’s such a good way of putting it.

And while I did feel a lot of that here, I also just felt so bad for Mallory - she didn’t have a soul in the whole world. I think the author did a pretty good job of creating that balance - a morally reprehensible character who’s motivations we can actually understand and empathise with. Like, who’s the real villain here?

It changes, I think, and that’s what makes the book interesting. Let’s talk about Leo, the struggling young drug addict and sex worker who Mallory ‘befriends’. He’s the queer anti-hero she’s been looking for. I thought Leo was a really well wrought character.

Every scene with him had me so anxious. It was so hard seeing him bounce from desperate situation to desperate situation. It just got worse. The scene also with his parents was just excruciating, knowing how much it took him to go back there and then to be rejected, but also understanding his parents. Seeing him through their eyes…

I agree, his wretchedness is painted so vividly. He’s in a truly desperate situation - when he gets a text from one of his abusive clients, who forces him to do really depraved things, my heart was in my mouth. But he never loses his irreverence - or, we later find out, is it something darker than irreverence? Mallory of course doesn’t see that, she just sees his surface and assumes his back story is super tragic. But then he reveals that his parents are “dead nice”, that they re-mortgaged their house trying to get him off drugs, that “I make a lot of shit up - to get what I want.” Mallory thinks that Leo is naive, but is it she who has been naive?

Definitely. Mallory has this strange sheltered quality to her. I wish we got more insight into what her life was like after living with her mom but before Ronan. But again maybe it simply goes back to that loss of confidence and ability to think clearly.

She’s someone that needs other people to feel alive, I think. Or maybe that’s unfair - maybe Ronan has just drained her of vivacity and integrity - was she with Ronan when she wrote Shallow Embers, do we know?

I believe that was pre Ronan. I doubt she could have created anything great under his thumb.

True. And maybe she had this really rich life before him. I don’t know if you have read any profiles with the author, but he’s a mental health nurse, who battled addiction in his youth and struggled with his sexuality - which might be why Leo is drawn so vividly. (Interestingly, Silver wrote YA books before he wrote this one.) He notes in an interview with Dazed, that both Mallory and Leo are looking for connection.

“There’s a shared understanding in the patriarchal heteronormative system that we live in where you feel shunned…. The point of the book is that these two people are reaching for connection, and actually, their pain is very similar. Mallory is being manipulated and controlled to uphold [her husband] and his needs and what he wants, and she’s looking for a way out. Leo is trying to come out of his situation, where he feels like the world has been against him because of his sexuality.”

So smart! And you can totally see this come across in the book, which is why I think they could have become friends! I could have sworn that’s the ending we were headed towards, actually.

Can we talk about the fake novel Mallory is writing to keep Ronan off her tail? The Air Between Us is written mostly with AI and thoroughly approved of by Ronan.

Mallory’s disgust for her beard novel really made me laugh. I think the reason Ronan waxes lyrical about it is - reading it every day when he gets home, like he’s checking her homework - is because he knows it’s shit. He knows that it won’t sell and she will remain powerless/ under his thumb and so he encourages her to keep writing it. They’re both playing a game the other doesn’t know about.

I thought that was a bit of cheeky fun. Lots of that in this book.

There is. I really like the way Silver writes about publishing. More and more books are using publishing’s weaknesses as plot point. Mallory’s agent Stan, who she reconnects with when she’s writing Leo’s story, ‘winks’ when someone asks him how he got Mallory ‘half a mill’ and says “it’s all about positioning. And timing.” And honestly, I won’t name names, but there are so many books about sexy, edgy, au courant conversations that I know - I know - have been published not because they are well-written but because they are well-timed. And that is publishing’s weakness. That it can’t just publish a great book by a great writer, there has to be hook.

I really enjoy books that explore the industry behind literature. In our last conversation, we touched a bit on how much of Yesteryear’s success has to do with the timing. It’s fascinating to consider the changing factors that go into a book becoming a hit! I guess that’s why you have some people bemoaning the commercialisation of literature. But is this a new thing, or do we just know more?

I think it’s a bit of both. Marketing has become more transparent and more aggressive because so many more books are being published than even 10 years ago - meaning it’s harder and harder for books to break through - and that’s why so many authors burn out trying to promote their work. In addition, we have a generally higher literacy of what will and won’t get published now. Even the lay reader has an idea idea about things being good timing or good optics, etc, which actually leads to a widespread cynicism that makes me quite sad. I believe in serendipity! Sometimes I wish we knew a little less about how the sausage gets made - in every industry. But then if we did…. we wouldn’t get great books like this, so ;)

That winky face is so Fruit Fly.

Isn’t it.