Josh Silver’s Fruit Fly alternates perspectives between two very different voices. There’s well-off, uninspired author Mallory, who fixates on her nice house and spends twenty minutes creating the perfect messy bun. Then there’s Leo, a twenty-two-year-old funding his addiction with sex, trying to keep his head above water. Desperate to write a bestseller, Mallory stalks and mines Leo for the dark, gay content that she thinks is sure to bolster her literary image.

“I was speaking to my brother, and he read the book, and he was like, You’re both of these people,” Josh told me over Zoom, speaking from the UK, where he’s based. “I think that’s probably true. Leo is definitely the closest to who I am, or was a long time ago. And Mallory, I think there’s a version of her in me too, now.”

When we spoke, Josh was getting ready for the New Zealand and Australia stops of his book tour, recalibrating but excited by the response to Fruit Fly. Josh has written three YA novels— the HappyHead series and Traumaland— and wanted to write a book more based on his experience. That is, experience as a human being, in the publishing world, and in media, informed by his previous acting career. In Fruit Fly, he set out to explore the commodification of pain and who profits from it. Read on for our conversation.

Fruit Fly and Traumaland both explore the idea of commodifying pain. In writing books about characters’ trauma, are you ever scared of doing that same act of commodification? 

I'm not scared of doing that. With Fruit Fly, interestingly, Leo— whose story is being stolen— is also lying. But his story is very similar to how I was when I was in active addiction, and how he performs his pain. I'm not worried about commercialising that because I'm trying to tell a part of the LGBTQ+ narrative, which isn't often spoken about. We have subversions of that narrative, which are out, and people tell those stories. They're celebrated, and that's great. But there's also the reality of it, and I wanted to put that out there. I don't feel worried because it is my experience. 

People have asked me, You're writing from the point of view of a woman, and you're not a woman, but that's where the meta aspect of the book comes in. Am I appropriating? Where's the line for any author, any storyteller? Are we only allowed to tell stuff that we've experienced?

What can we take away from that idea of ‘writing what you know’— does it inform the stories you tell?

There's a line, isn't there? Are we only supposed to write what we know in our experience? Or are we allowed to branch into other territory that we've not experienced the pain from, or what it's like to be in that position… Are we doing it because we want to shine a light on that story, or is there a more commercial aim? 

When I grew up as an actor, it was recognised that you shouldn't be out. This was fifteen years ago, as a gay actor, or there certainly weren’t many out gay actors that I knew of. Then there was this huge shift into a push for diversity and people saying, No, you can be out now, you can be gay. We're actually only casting gay actors for this part. 

I felt strange. I was trying to understand why all of a sudden we're allowed to be ourselves when it suits the cultural narrative. 

Are we allowed to dig into other people's trauma and write about it, I didn't know the answer. There are other works that have explored this, Yellowface being one of them. Another one is the film American Fiction, which is based on a book. It's a very murky conversation to have.

Your characters often have a pop culture figure who's important to them. Why did you include these references?

We're so influenced by what we see around us in the media. Often, we can attach ourselves to these people, and it's like a fantasy. People escape into these fantasies of things that they've seen. Mallory is obsessed with the film version of her life, and she has this idea that Saoirse Ronan would be the perfect person to play her. 

Eli [in Traumaland] is escaping into this world where he thinks he's this strange, odd person. He begins to create a fancy of himself as being someone like Reagan [MacNeil], someone who's seen as evil. Seb in HappyHead has this fantasy of being free like Bowie and being able to express himself. It's all about using pop culture references to feel a fantasy.

You include a quote from Dune in Fruit Fly’s acknowledgments: “Fear is the mind killer.” In Traumaland’s dedication, you say you want readers to be afraid after reading the book. What purpose is there to be found in fear? 

Fear is a huge driving force in my life. 

The fear of lots of things. Not being enough, not being seen, or not being able to be creative. That quote from Dune is my favourite quote because the only thing that gets in the way of me putting myself out there is fear. It destroys who we are. It removes our individuality, and it stops us from being able to be ourselves, because we're scared of being different.

The fear in Traumaland [stems from] the world - turning into a very scary place with the rise of AI and technology. That's why I write these dystopian thrillers for the YA market, because I want young people to become more aware of how worrying [the world they're growing up in] is. Fear is such a huge part of the human experience… so much about behaviour is about wanting to not feel fear.

Your YA books use dystopian and speculative elements to convey those scary topics, but Fruit Fly is rooted more in reality. Was the process of writing it different because of that? 

Yeah, it was different. When you write for a YA market, that Hunger Games, dystopian thrill, Squid Game sort of thing is exciting. I love those kind[s] of stories, and I enjoy telling them, but I also feel like there's a thrill in writing reality. You’re right, Fruit Fly is based in a far more realistic concept. I actually found it scarier. It is an adult market, so there's more readers there, but I think people find the fears are more relatable in a way that's human.

I've enjoyed writing about the inner workings of someone's mind and how our minds can work destructively. I'm interested in the way personality and behaviours develop over time and why we develop them, why we become the people we are. I enjoyed being able to put that into Fruit Fly, in a way that perhaps YA novels are more plot-driven.

Without going into specifics, it's interesting how you’ve portrayed Mallory’s reasons for exploiting Leo. Why did you choose to write her this way?

There's a double-edged thing here. It's really important to make your characters— not likable, that's not my job— but to make you understand where they're coming from and why they're doing what they're doing… It was important for me to show Mallory not as a villain, but as someone in survival mode, a product of her own experience. 

She's not evil, she's not bad. She's trying to survive, as Leo is. It was important that we showed that in the book because I didn't want it to be just an exploitative narrative. I wanted her to be genuinely trying to help herself. And then we could root for her a little bit as well. That complicates things further because we're like, Oh, what I'm actually rooting for is quite destructive. 

Was that a factor in why you've included Mallory's connection to the gay community— her brother Nick? It doesn't justify what she does, but does it play a role in that? 

It's her own self-justification of why she's doing what she's doing. She's saying, I have a right to tell this, 'cause my brother struggled with it. There's a confusion within her about whether it really is right. I don't think her relationship with Nick was great. So it's like, Oh, now in hindsight, I'm going to use my brother's experience to validate my own. 

I wanted it to be murky. I don't want you to like what she's doing, but understand this is her trying to survive, and link herself in some way to this experience that she's writing about. The publishing world is pushing for her to authenticate herself. They want to hear those stories from her, she's got a link to it. They can authenticate what she's writing, and that is a way in for them to do it. 

I liked how you included Leo's poems throughout the novel. Was that to show us what he's thinking and going through? 

It's also about expression. He uses Instagram to publish his poetry, and that's no less important than Mallory publishing a book. In fact, him finding an avenue to express himself is really important… When I was younger, I got into Cambridge University to read English, and I didn't go. I went to drama school instead, and I spent a lot of my time regretting that. There’s the narrative towards the end of the book that [Leo] had potential as a writer and that he was good at school; he was academically bright, but ruined it for himself. This is him trying to connect with that part of him that had enjoyed writing.

You often write very visual, abstract imagery. Leo's poems are a good example of that. How do you arrive at these unique images? 

I have a very active imagination. My internal world is much louder than what's happening around me externally, and I don't live in reality very often… It can be difficult for other people, 'cause I don't seem present a lot of the time. 

I’m living in this world where images are happening quite readily, and I enjoy writing, putting them down, getting them out of me.

I'm glad that you think my writing's visual. I'm very much influenced by TV and film as well. All of my books are written in real time; each chapter happens in real time. If it's a time jump, it happens off-page, but there's not much scanning through weeks or months… that lends itself to being cinematic in a way. 

I like writing chapters as if they're scenes, as if they're being watched. I enjoy writing the nuances of people's interactions in the smaller moments. What they're thinking in those moments, and the contrast between their thoughts and what they're actually saying. 

Tattoos are a recurring image in your YA books. Why have you incorporated them so significantly? 

When I quit acting, I suddenly got a load of them. I felt like I couldn't get them because I was in period dramas quite a lot, and they were like, You have to cover them up with makeup. I find them a great expression of individuality and moments in time. They’re little pockets of time that you'll always remember. It's a cool way of marking things and marking points in our lives that we grow out of or we want to grow into. 

I find them useful tools in YA. I used to work on wards, and the kids would always be giving themselves stick and poke tattoos. Often they looked cool, and they were trying to express their creativity in a way and how they were feeling. It's an interesting blend of emotional pain mixed with physical pain. Getting a tattoo is painful. There's an interesting blend of why we're putting that on our body.

Do Mallory and Leo have any tattoos? 

Mallory's probably got one on her ankle, when she had a little rebellious moment. Leo's probably got a few scattered about, and honestly deeply regrets, that he got when he was high or drunk. I like to think they do, that’s a good question.

Fruit Fly is dark, but it's also funny at parts. How do you see this connection between darkness and humour? 

The people who have been through the most stuff I know are usually the funniest. There's something in trying to make light of a difficult situation, or it’s survival, and a way to connect is through humour. We connect with each other through our difficult experiences. I never set out for my writing to be comedic, but I do find people ridiculous, myself included. The behaviours I've done in my life have been laughable and funny. I can talk about them with my friends, and understand that what I did was awful. What happened to me was awful, but we have to move through it. Humour allows us to connect with other people, to feel safe about what's happened… In me, it adds an element of safety.

Josh Silver will be at four events for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. On Friday, the 22nd of May, he will be on the Stop Being Stuck panel, a free event discussing mental health. On Saturday, the 23rd of May, he will be in conversation about writing in the digital age and suspenseful narratives. Finally, on Sunday, the 24th of May, he will speak on Fruit Fly at Marrickville Library, another free event. Hope to see you there!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.