The Lemon: A Novel

(Hardback)

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" T his poised and playful debut novel is a sly satire on foodie culture and the modern hype machine. . . . As tart as 'artisanal citrus,' as sharp as a chef's knife, The Lemon is both a gleeful foodie sendup and an incisive takedown of the commercial exploitation of just about everything." -The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) Named a Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2022 by Entertainment Weekly . Vogue . AARP the Magazine . The AV Club . Parade . Eater . New York Post . LitHub . Publishers Lunch . and more! Set in the intersecting worlds of fine dining, Hollywood, and the media, a darkly hilarious and ultimately affecting story 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 stateside, 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. Bolstered by the authors' insider knowledge of high-end restaurants and low-end media, The Lemon delivers a raucous examination of our culture with deliciously cutting prose, crackling dialogue, and an unpredictable plot that will keep you riveted to the last page.

Reviews

[T]his poised and playful debut novel is a sly satire on foodie culture and the modern hype machine. . . . As tart as artisanal citrus, as sharp as a chefs knife, The Lemon is both a gleeful foodie sendup and an incisive takedown of the commercial exploitation of just about everything.
The New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice)

Boyd forcefully skewers what they refer to as the Celebrity-Death Industrial Complex with spit-take-level humor.
The Washington Post

[An] acid, knife-edged satire on food-world mores and the vagaries of modern fame.
Entertainment Weekly, Best New Books of Fall 2022

Sure to set the food world abuzz, The Lemon is an archly acidic look at the celebrity death industrial complex and all those who seek to seize the narrativeand the spotlightin the wake of a famous persons death.
Vogue, 25 Best Books to Read This Fall

A winner thats packed with dark humor.
AARP the Magazine, 45 of Falls Best New Books

"A helluva novel. Hip-deep in knowing detail from the worlds of food, media, and Hollywood. . . A hilarious, brilliant, cynical (and maybe even a little sad) takedown of the moral vacuum that is celebrity culture."
Kirkus Reviews, starred review

A bawdy Judd-Apatow-meets-Carl-Hiaasen romp . . . The dialogue crackles, the zip line plot slings the reader from one hilariously fraught incident to the next, and the conclusion is as emotionally satisfying as ever an authoror threecould have concocted. Like a perfectly seared slice of foie gras with a dollop of lingonberry jam on an artisanal toast point, The Lemon simply cannot be put down, and when youve finished it, youll want more.
BookPage, starred review

Every story line offers suspense and surprises, and the book's deadpan humor is unremitting. . . . This frequently brilliant debut novel is a hilarious spoof of monetization mania and foodie culture.
Shelf Awareness

This bitingly satiric tale examines the mix of greed and reverence that drives people who have something to gain or to protect.
Library Journal

Laugh-out-loud sensationala nonstop, scalpel-sharp, satirical skewering of, well, everything . . . A whole new genre: sardonic suspense!
Lee Child

Fearless, moving, and funny as hell. This is incisive, witty, era-defining literature like they used to make it. Thank God its back.
Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Three Women and Animal

The Lemon is the most fun Ive had reading a made-up story in forever and a day. It rips on everything and everybody in our zeitgeist and beyond. Its full of terrible people behaving like asses. Like real life. Funny, smart, surprising. Loved it.
Bob Odenkirk, star of Better Call Saul and New York Times bestselling author of Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama

S. E. Boyd has taken the secret ingredient to fameshameless persistenceand used it to pressure-cook up a novel funny enough and hot enough to singe the high brows off of any raised-pinkie foodie.
Paul Beatty, Booker Prizewinning author of The Sellout

Deliciously trenchant, hilarious, and impossible to put down, this dark comedy says something profound about the world of celebrity and the mesmerizing subversives within it.
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, author of the international bestsellers Sarong Party Girls and A Tiger in the Kitchen

Witty, razor sharp, and enviably well-written, The Lemon is the bombshell book that members of the food-obsessed Kitchen Confidential generation have been waiting for.
Adam Platt, former New York Magazine chief restaurant critic and author of The Book of Eating

Author Bio

S. E. Boyd is the creation of veteran journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane, and editor Alessandra Lusardi. All lightly damaged Catholics prone to extensive over analysis, Alexander, Keohane, and Lusardi have between them authored four books, edited dozens more, and written for Esquire, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, among others. Alexander also won a James Beard Award for food writing, a fact Keohane and Lusardi are both tired of hearing about. This is their first novel.