The secret to Josh Silver's bestselling book 'Fruit Fly'? Go gay. Go sad. Go dark.

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Set us as preferred Readers are so obsessed with Josh Silver’s “Fruit Fly,” that the buzziest book of the summer sold out across online and major book retailers last month.The satirical literary thriller follows Mallory, a celebrated but has-been author who’s had writer’s block for nearly a decade.

She googles “How to write a bestseller,” and comes upon the Reddit advice to “Go gay.Go sad.

Go dark.”“Also — always remember: gay is in.Go gay.

It’s cool now.It sells.

However — here is the gold dust — the perfect blend is gay AND sad.You nail that, you’re minted.

And probs an award winner,” Silver writes in the book.Desperate to find a muse to inspire her next bestseller, Mallory comes upon Leo, a gay addict who lives under a bridge and sells sex on Grindr to support his drug habit.

He’s perfect, she thinks, and the world needs his story, she needs his story.Oblivious to her own biases about who Leo is and why, Mallory poses as a therapist keen on saving his life, but uses their faux sessions to mine his story for literary gold.

On the Shelf Fruit Fly By Josh Silver Crooked Lane Books: 384 pages, $30If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.“How much we think we know about a certain culture or demographic is based on what we’re presented by literature, films, movies, culture, and it’s not that the fault lies entirely in the person, but in the systems generating what they’re calling authentic,” Silver tells me over a recent call.The London-based author has been on a press tour in New York, where he plans to move in the near future, and he’ll be in Los Angeles this week to discuss the book that broke the internet.

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