‘Fruit Fly’ by Josh Silver

Finally, a book that I felt engaged with and that wasn’t a struggle to really get into!

My understanding of Fruit Fly going in was that a writer in the depths of writer’s block finds inspiration for her next book in the gay chemsex world. What I didn’t expect was for it to become a study of addiction, obsession and coercive control.

The story is told from the perspectives of our author, Mallory, and the inspiration for her return to writing, Leo. It’s not laugh out loud funny. In fact, I didn’t find much of it funny at all despite it being hyped as “darkly funny”. Silver does a good job of creating two distinct narratives while gradually blending their similarities, so you begin to see the connection between Mallory and Leo even when they don’t recognise it themselves.

When I first started reading, I thought we were getting something of a Russell T Davies style dramedy as Mallory enters the world of gay hook up apps. There is some comedy to be found there, but things quickly become much more serious. I was surprised by the curveball of Mallory’s home life, which becomes a central part of the story. It never felt out of place and instead echoed the different struggles these two people from vastly different backgrounds were experiencing.

I did think Mallory’s husband could have been more rounded as a character. He was essentially just a bastard, and I would have liked Silver to dig a little deeper into their history together. The same goes for Mallory’s past. We know she was unwell and spent time in hospital, but I felt there was more to explore there.

Silver does a good job of creating two distinct narratives while gradually blending their similarities, so you begin to see the connection between Mallory and Leo even when they don’t recognise it themselves.

I also rolled my eyes more than once at some of the caricatured gay lingo. “Yass”, “kween”, “diva”, and even the title of the fictional novel, Slay, all felt a little too on the nose. At times it felt like gay culture viewed through the lens of someone whose main reference point was RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Silver’s writing is incredibly digestible and the chapters are the perfect length. You always feel like you’re getting through a good chunk of the story, which encouraged me to keep reading. Having seen that Silver’s first books were YA novels, this makes sense, but the writing never feels juvenile. If anything, that accessibility is one of the book’s strengths.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the ending. It ties things up nicely enough while leaving Leo’s story open for us to wonder what his next move might be, but I don’t think I got quite the resolution I was craving.

All in all, Fruit Fly was a good read that kept me engaged throughout, which after a run of books I’ve struggled to really sink my teeth into was more than welcome. I came for a story about a writer finding inspiration in an unexpected place and ended up with something much darker about addiction, control and the ways people can become trapped in lives they desperately want to escape.