S. E. Boyd

The Lemon: A Novel S. E. Boyd

Set in the intersecting worlds of fine dining, Hollywood, and the media, a darkly hilarious and ultimately devastating satire about the underside of success and fame, and our ongoing complicity in devouring our cultural heroes

While filming on location in Belfast, Northern Ireland, John Doe, the
universally adored host of the culinary travel show Last Call, is found dead in a hotel room in an apparent suicide. As the news of his untimely demise breaks, a group of friends, fixers, hustlers, and opportunists vie to seize control of the narrative: Doe's chess-master of an agent Nia, ready to call in every favor she is owed to preserve his legacy; down-on-her-luck journalist Katie, who fabricates a story about Doe to save her job at a failing website; and world-famous chef Paolo Cabrini, Doe's closest friend and confidant, who finds himself entangled with a deranged Belfast hotel worker whose lurid secret might just take them all down.

With raucous, deliciously cutting prose, crackling dialogue, and an unpredictable, tightly plotted story line-bolstered by the authors' insider knowledge of high-end restaurants and low-end digital media-The Lemon is a darkly hilarious and ultimately devastating interrogation of the underside of success and fame, and our ongoing complicity in devouring the cultural heroes we hardly deserve.