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A darkly funny, heart-wrenching satire that tears through the guts of the war news industry.
Catch-22 on speed and set in the Middle East, Vulture is a fast-paced satire of the war news industry and a tragi-comic coming-of-age novel.
In November 2012, Sara Byrne, an ambitious young journalist, is sent to Gaza to cover a war from The Beach. At the four-star hotel, staff work tirelessly to provide safety, comfort and generator-powered internet for the world's media, even as their own homes and families are under threat.
Sara is determined to use this war to launch her stalling career and win back her lover. So, when her fixer Nasser refuses to set up the dangerous story she thinks will make her name, she turns instead to Fadi, the youngest member of a powerful militant family. Driven by the demons of a damaging, entitled, childhood, Sara will stop at nothing to prove herself, even if it brings disaster upon those around her.
Greenwood's debut novel draws readers into the dark heart of western media, and with audacity and humour, questions its complicity in the tragedies that feed it.
"This striking portrait of hubris will keep readers glued to the page." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Though it's set amid another Gaza conflict, Vulture is less about the war than it is about foreign opportunism and interference...Its shocking conclusion indicting all those who exploit human tragedies for personal gain, Vulture is a scathing satirical novel set in the troubled Middle East." —Foreword Reviews
"This timely tragi-comic satire tears through the guts of the war news industry." —Country & Townhouse
"Vulture is the Scoop of our age—an absurdist tale of western media cynicism exposed by the unending horror of Gaza. Greenwood has created an antiheroine narrator whose view of the world is so darkly acerbic and sharply observed that, even as Sara appeals us with every turned page, we cannot bear to leave her side." —Julian Borger, author of I Seek a Kind Person
"Razor sharp and poignantly funny, Vulture is a remarkable debut." —Ammar Kalia, author of A Person Is A Prayer
This information about Vulture was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Phoebe Greenwood is a writer and journalist living in London. Between 2010 and 2013, she was a freelance correspondent in Jerusalem covering the Middle East for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times. From 2013 to 2021, she was an editor and correspondent at the Guardian specializing in foreign affairs.
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