Description

‘Utterly charming … Bordas is an invaluable new voice’ George Saunders

‘A disquisition into the nature of comedy and creativity. Like the best comedians … Bordas is alert to the deeper joke’ Sunday Times

‘Amusing… impressive’ New York Times

‘Marvellously engaging and entertaining … full of terrific moments and cutting dialogue’ Independent

Every comedian knows that there’s a line between sharp and cruel, that sad becomes funny at the right angle, that any moment in life, however painful or triumphant, has the potential to become a punchline. At the Chicago Stand-up School, success is about the material.

But maybe Artie is too handsome to be taken seriously on stage, Olivia too scared to examine her past, and Phil too afraid to cause harm. Their teachers are obsessed with failure: Kruger trying to command his father’s respect, Ashbee weary of the way his Blackness attracts a type of white admirer, Dorothy wondering how her talent is connected to her loneliness. Whether a visiting comedian-the famous, controversy-steeped Manny Reinhardt-will do more to help or to harm their cause remains to be seen.

Set over the course of a single day, and shifting exquisitely between several points of view, The Material examines life through the eyes of a band of outsiders bound together by the need to laugh, and the desire to make others laugh even harder.

Publisher Review

A novel about an MFA program for stand-up comics better be damned funny, and The Material is definitely that. It’s also profound, deeply engrossing, dark and generous, a great novel about humans making art right now — Sam Lipsyte The comedian as the aptest illustration of contemporary morality…What begins as a clever conceit becomes an interrogation of sadness itself. — Rachel Cusk, author of Outline Utterly charming . . . moving, witty, funny, and especially wonderful for the mature kind-heartedness of its view of humanity. Bordas is an invaluable new voice — George Saunders This novel is so smart. The science of comedy, it turns out, is no laughing matter, but it is nothing but funny. Camille Bordas has exposed the “material” of stand-up by making stand-up her material. Writing comedy is difficult enough, but writing comedy bits that fail and comedy bits that succeed requires some brilliance. That brilliance is on display here — Percival Everett Funny, humane and slyly philosophical — Zadie Smith Bordas will enchant her readers. . . . She is J.D. Salinger as a French
woman-what more could you want?” — Catherine Lacey Everyone’s a comedian in The Material, and that’s no joke. Camille Bordas’s novel is wryly funny and painfully awkward, populated by an irresistible cast of overthinkers and second guessers. It’s a deep and illuminating pleasure, full of insights about stand-up comedy, group dynamics, and the inner lives of artists — Tom Perrotta Like the most brilliant comedy, The Material is not only very funny, but also incisive and insightful. Reading it, I understood more acutely the thin line between the plausible and the absurd. Come for the laughs, stay for the observations so deadpan and accurate that you may be blinded by your own reflection — Ling Ma, author of Severance