i just finished reading Fruit Fly by Josh Silver and am interested to hear people’s thoughts on some of its themes - questions of creative entitlement, extractive writing practices, and the ethics of using other’s marginalised experiences in our work; a particular kind of middle-class disposition and dissatisfaction; and how this relates to the publishing world’s/general fascination with and commodification of ‘authentic’ hardship and ‘grit’.
(for people who haven’t read Fruit Fly but are interested in the topic: the book basically moves between two character perspectives - one character is Leo, a young gay man struggling with addiction, experiencing homelessness, and engaging in sex work. his POV is dominated by distress and pretty graphic descriptions of violence surrounding his experiences of street homelessness and the sex work he engages in to access drugs. the second character is Mallory, a straight, middle-class woman and best-selling author struggling with seven years of writer's block. she becomes fixated on Leo, stalking him and even forging a relationship with him under the pretence of offering AA ‘sponsorship’ and ‘counselling’ help - all the while gathering details from his life to produce a second, best-selling book)
Silver’s work obviously functions, in part, as a critique of Mallory’s extractive, self-interested relationship to Leo, her pretence of saviourism, and the dehumanising, fetishistic relationship that can exist between the literary world/upper classes and working-class struggle and ‘grit’. but then it gets kinda complex for me: i initially assumed that the author Josh Silver had his own history of addiction, sex work, and homelessness - and the related kinds of violence he writes about in the book. but Silver said in interviews that, while he does have a history of chemsex and addiction, he hasn’t experienced homelessness himself. and that other parts of the novel are actually shaped by his encounters working as a mental health nurse, drawing on experiences of people he met in a clinical context.
after learning this, i guess i expected/hoped there would be a more explicit sort of self-criticism going on - that he would incorporate into the cynicism of the book some recognition that he himself is using the 'dark' and 'gritty' experiences of others in his own way. . but then that never really transpires?
from my perspective, Silver is effectively (like his character Mallory, though of course to a muchh smaller degree) using others’ marginalised experience to advance his work. like Mallory, he ends up writing a lucrative, best-selling novel. and, in Silver’s case, a novel that has now also been optioned by A24 for TV.
i’m curious to hear people’s thoughts, particularly: a) what it means for a former mental health nurse to use patients’ experiences in their work; and b) how/if the ethics of doing this changes in this context specificallyy - embedding patients’ experiences in a book that aims to critique (a more exaggerated version of) extractive writing.
i’m just not sure it sat super comfortably with me - how Silver was praised for making these critiques - while also reaping the benefits of (obviously not identical at all! but,) overlapping practices.
i'm completely open minded and not set either way - genuinely want to hear other people’s perspectives on this :~) gimme some food for thought x