The Lemon: A Novel - Hardcover

Boyd, S. E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593490444 ISBN 13: 9780593490440

Verlag: Viking, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor

“[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.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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 overanalysis, 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.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1.

Charlie McCree

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Monday, July 1, 2019, 8:13 a.m.

Charles Ulysses McCree-aka Smilin' Charlie McCree-whistled down the hall of the top floor of bandit in a long-shot bid to conceal the fact that he was barely holding himself together. The pathways connecting his brain to his arms and legs and feet and fingers had been disrupted. Some of his extremities ached, while others were numb. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Not that he could see, anyway. Before Charlie came to work this morning, he had dropped a mug of tea in his kitchen. One moment he was holding it, the next he was not, and fucked if he knew what had transpired in the interim. Perhaps he was dreaming; perhaps a sinkhole had opened in his brain. But while some existing neural pathways had been severed, new ones had formed. His hair hurt, for example. So did his fingernails. Dead things brought to life by a record-breaking two-day blitz upon the City of Belfast.

His eyes may have lost the ability to focus properly, but he was still able to discern the form of a housekeeper as she emerged from the dark fog of the hallway before him. Her name tag read "Kitty." Presented with this information, Charlie attempted to pass himself off not only as a human being, but as a human being who sings.

" 'Oh Kitty, my darling, remember,' " he intoned. " 'That the doom will be mine if I stay.' "

"Fuck off with ya, Charlie," she said, brushing past.

The weekend had been bloody sensational. The festivities started in the dark among the mannequins at the Filthy Quarter on Dublin Road, as they always did, because the decor allowed the lads to simulate intercourse with insensate objects, a cherished pastime. Having achieved a suitable level of intoxication, Charlie and his mates then set out to sup from every pub in the center of the city-the Garrick, White's, McHugh's, the Bullitt Hotel bar, the John Hewitt-moving haphazardly from one to the next, becoming louder and more damaged, bouncing off lorries and light poles and Proddies and Papes, mounting bold charges and beating craven retreats, and in time covering a significant swath of the city, like a robotic vacuum cleaner that generates mess instead of sucking it up.

Friday yielded to Saturday and, after an interlude of impromptu public sleep, Charlie and the lads hit the daylight like an enemy beachhead and fought well into the afternoon. As the hours passed and his mates began to show signs of wear, Charlie only gathered force. He was a hard man to keep pace with. Alcohol amplified his essential Charlie-ness and turned it into a matter of public concern. There was no hostility to it, however. Only joy. Only lust for living. At one point, Charlie acquired a bridal veil, presumably from a hen party in which he had temporarily embedded himself. This accoutrement, he was later informed, inspired him to attempt to kiss a police officer on the mouth while speaking in a womanly voice and to steal a multitude of orange parking cones, which the lads subsequently used as megaphones to inform the masses about the many arcane toilet procedures favored by Her Majesty, the queen.


By late afternoon on Saturday, time had slipped from its skein and morale ebbed. By nine p.m., most of Charlie's mates had fallen away. Some had been decked, over women or for slights intended or unwitting. Others were sickened. One simply lost heart and skulked off. No matter: Charlie just replaced them with new friends. It was easy. When Charlie attained a certain state, he ceased to be a normal human trapped in body and status, limited by personal and moral inhibitions and the strictures of a class-based society. He became magnetic, magnificent. Charlie in his cups ascended to the rarified air. He became Prince Charlie of Belfast, friend to man and woman, leader in song, and the city lined up behind him. And then came the hard light of Monday morning and Charlie did what any self-respecting man would do: he got up, pulled a strange bridal veil out of his pants, threw up, and went to work.


He had taken the job at bandit after his band, which fused Irish rebel music with ska, had been banished from most of the city's clubs for what he was certain was a mix of political reasons and personal jealousies. As Charlie temporarily paused his ascension to global stardom, he, like so many others who dreamed of artistic immortality, turned to the hospitality business. But unlike some of his fellow
artistes, Charlie loved it. He was a good talker, charming and presentable and not a bad-looking guy, all of which helped.

But he also had a hidden genius. Charlie could convey a sense of Belfast authenticity, while at the same time not laying it on so thick that the foreigners who stayed at bandit felt excluded or ill at ease. This was a delicate dance, to be certain. Success in hospitality in Belfast was the product of relentless calibration. The sort of rich foreign tourist who stayed at bandit wanted an authentic Belfast experience. But they preferred it come at a safe remove. They didn't want to be made to feel guilty or uncomfortable while getting it. Charlie's genius was in walking that line. He could tell hair-raising stories. Sure, sometimes he took factual liberties, but he was so engaging that no one ever questioned him. And no matter how dark the tale, Charlie always took care to end it on a grace note: people can behave in terrible ways, but goodness prevails with faith and good works, and the visitors who come to this place are brave, and their attention means a great deal to his people. Though we have suffered, he implied with his every utterance, fear not, we do not fancy ourselves superior to you.

His friend Seamus accused him of running some kind of rank, Troubles-themed minstrel show-and, sure, there was an element of performance to it-but Charlie wasn't doing it out of cynicism. Perish the thought. He was the world's greatest optimist. He just wanted to make people happy. He just wanted to connect. To enter their lives and live on in their memories. That's why he loved performing music, after all. He could have been a hard man about dealing with these tourists as they walked around sticking their fingers in the wounds of his city, but his favored approach came as a great relief to his guests, particularly the Irish Americans, and for it they tipped him lavishly.

Charlie continued down the hallway, listing slightly, performing a quick check of his vital systems. In the seconds since being cursed by Kitty the housekeeper, something had gone wrong with his foot. It felt abraded, like the top of the inside of his shoe had been lined with sandpaper. Charlie couldnÕt figure out what it was, but it hurt. Then it hit him: the tea. The scalding liquid must have landed on his foot. It had just taken a couple of hours for the signal to arrive at his brain, like a lorry through a checkpoint. Jesus fuck, he thought, I am the most bombed-out individual in the most bombed-out city in Ireland.


When he'd arrived at work an hour earlier, it was with the fearful conviction that his body would at any moment void in all directions in front of a mass of horrified guests, like a great green fountain of sick. He needed to mobilize. He picked up a phone and pretended a guest was speaking to him.

"Yes sir," he said. "Two pillows. Fluffy ones. Right away, sir."

He'd then obtained two pillows from a room behind the desk and set out on his travels, even though the pillows were incredibly fucking hard for him to carry in his present condition. He wandered down hallways, into stairwells, and throughout the facility for some thirty minutes before he found himself on the top floor, passing a suite whose door was slightly ajar, from which a faint mewling sound was heard.
What is this, then? Charlie wondered. He...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Viking
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593490444
• ISBN 13: 9780593490440
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Zeitfracht Medien GmbH; info-medien@zeitfracht.de; ; Ferdinand-Jühlke-Straße 7; Erfurt; 99095; Deutschland