Book Soup Presents: Josh Silver discussing & signing Fruit Fly

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

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.

Josh Silver trained as an actor at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and went on to perform in the West End and on Broadway. After deciding to change careers, Josh worked with teenagers as a mental health nurse. He is the critically acclaimed author of YA titles Happy Head, Dead Happy, and Erase Me which recently won the 2026 YA Book Prize. Josh's much anticipated adult debut Fruit Fly was released on August 4, 2026 in the U.S. and Canada.

This is a ticketed event through Eventbrite and will take place at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, located at 540 S. Commonwealth Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90020

Tickets are only available through Book Soup's Eventbrite page. If you buy a ticket from a third party, it is not a valid ticket.

Your ticket includes a copy of Fruit Fly, to be handed out at check-in. A public book signing will follow the conversation.

Check-in begins at 6pm and the show begins promptly at 7pm.

No refunds on the day of the event.