September 2026
Fruit Fly
By Josh Silver
Remember Hanya Yanagihara’s A LITTLE LIFE, the sad, dark and gay story of four college friends struggling to make it in New York City? Mallory Maddox certainly does. One of the main characters in Josh Silver’s wild, gripping and strangely intelligent new book, Mallory is a writer in London whose first novel was a surprise success but presently she’s mired in the mud of writer’s block, obsessing about lost potential and the future of her chic yet suffocating marriage to a handsome Netflix executive. Reading on Reddit that publishers now want books that are sad, dark and gay, Mallory thinks a manuscript like A LITTLE LIFE will jumpstart her career. After a chance encounter with a homeless addicted named Leo, Mallory begins following the young gay man, ingratiating herself into his chaotic life. Leo, in return, sees an opportunity in this unhinged wealthy woman who’s taken such a bizarre interest in him. What follows is a twisty tale of obsession, addiction and exploitation, and just before it might veer into cliché, the book offers up a final act that turns the novel into a moving exploration of how pain can transform and connect us, and the devious ways it can tear us apart. One of the year’s best psychological thrillers.
READ IF YOU LIKE: YELLOWFACE (R. F. Kuang), THE PLOT (Jean Hanff Korelitz) and… A LITTLE LIFE (Hanya Yanagihara), of course