Fruit Fly - Josh Silver

Kindle edition · Magpie, April 2026

A Novel About Who Owns a Story

Fruit Fly is a dark, uneven novel about authorship, power and what happens when pain is turned into material. It is interested less in healing than in exposure, and it rarely lets the reader settle. 

The novel centres on Mallory, a writer stalled by writer's block and fixation, and Leo, a volatile and magnetic figure whose presence destabilises everyone around him. Their connection is intense and unsafe, driven by need and projection rather than trust. Mallory’s marriage to Ronan appears steady at first, yet gradually reveals itself as something more restrictive and quietly coercive. The story traces how these relationships tighten, fracture and eventually spill beyond private control. 

What works especially well is the contrast in voice. Leo’s sections are sharp, propulsive and darkly funny, carrying urgency and threat. His chapters give the book momentum and edge. The novel also handles addiction, desire and queerness without sanitising them, refusing easy redemption or moral clarity.

Where the book falters is pacing. Mallory’s sections sometimes linger too long inside anxiety and self-scrutiny, slowing the narrative at moments that call for pressure and movement. These stretches feel over-indulged rather than deepened, creating imbalance against the novel’s otherwise strong forward drive.

The final section shifts into the aftermath of publication, where private damage becomes public narrative. This turn is one of the book’s most interesting moves, exploring how control changes once a story no longer belongs to the person who lived it.

Fruit Fly is uneven but ambitious, unsettling rather than satisfying, and likely to divide readers. Those drawn to dark literary fiction that interrogates power, authorship and emotional exploitation will find much to engage with here.

Advance reading copy provided by NetGalley and Magpie (Oneworld Publications).