The book
An NPR Best New Summer Book
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.
“In a debut redolent of Graham Greene, Greenwood brings to life—in all their cynicism and all their humanity—the bullying, bragging, brilliant characters we rely on to bring us the news.”
Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag: Her Life and Work
The author
Phoebe Greenwood
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 specialising in foreign affairs.
Press
- May 21 2025
“A daring dark comedy.”
— NPR