The Lemon

About the book

“[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.

Praise for this book:

"S. E. Boyd has taken the secret ingredient to fame--'shameless persistence'--and 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

"Laugh-out-loud sensational--a 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 it's back." - Lisa Taddeo

"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