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Title details for The Material by Camille Bordas - Available

The Material

A Novel

by Camille Bordas
Megan Tusing
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
A single momentous day transforms the lives of students and professors at a school for stand-up comedy in a novel that “[brims] with insecure characters, clever repartee, dark jokes and funny riffs” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Insightful, compassionate, biting and honest.”—The Washington Post
“Brilliance is on display here.”—Percival Everett, author of James and The Trees
ONE OF SLATE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • Longlisted for the New American Voices Award
Can comedy be taught? Someone, at some point, seemed to think so. The Chicago Stand-Up MFA program has enrolled young comedians for nearly a decade.
Its teachers and students all know how bits work—in theory, at least. They know that there’s a line between sharp and cruel, that sad becomes funny at the right angle, that the worst is the best, the truth is the worst, and any moment of your life that isn’t a punch line will either get you to a punch line or force you to be one.
They’re all afraid to be one.
Artie may be too handsome for standup, Olivia too reluctant to examine her own life, and Phil too afraid to cause harm. Kruger may be too vanilla to command his students’ respect, Ashbee too detached. And then we have Dorothy—the only woman on the program’s faculty—who though preparing to launch a comeback tour can’t tell if she’s too abiding, too ambitious, or too ambivalent.
Whether a visiting professor—the high-profile, controversy-steeped comedian Manny Reinhardt—will do more to help or harm their cause remains to be seen. But he’s on his way. He’ll be arriving sooner than anyone thinks.
Riffing keenly across a diverse array of precision-cut perspectives, The Material examines life through the eyes of a reluctantly assembled ensemble, a band of outsiders bound together by the need to laugh and the longing to make others laugh even harder.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 11, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593908310
      • File size: 274393 KB
      • Duration: 09:31:39

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 29, 2024
      Bordas (How to Behave in a Crowd) sets her clever twist on the campus novel at the country’s first MFA program for stand-up comedy. Unfolding over a single December day at an unnamed university in Chicago, the narrative begins with a faculty department meeting and progresses to a student workshop. Everyone involved in the program is nervously anticipating the arrival of a controversial guest lecturer, recently disgraced comedy legend Manny Reinhardt. Dorothy, the only female faculty member, hopes to make a comeback in her comedy career, while her colleague Kruger dreams of quitting teaching and ascending to movie stardom. Among the students, Artie fears he’s “too good-looking to be funny,” while Jo is constantly on the lookout for Andy Kaufman, who she thinks is still alive. A subplot involving reports of an active shooter on campus feels unnecessary; more successful are Bordas’s explorations of what a stand-up routine requires of its writer and what, if anything, is off-limits, either because the subject is too offensive or because the material belongs to someone else. Occasional moments of broad comedy, like an embarrassing bathroom scene, spice up the observational humor incorporated throughout. It’s a knockout. Agent: Jackie Ko, Wylie Agency.

    • Library Journal

      September 13, 2024

      Offering a twist on novels set in MFA creative writing programs, Bordas (How To Behave in a Crowd) follows a group of students attending an MFA program for stand-up comedy in Chicago. Over the course of a single December day, the students and professors grapple with their craft, from debates about using personal stories to working with potentially offensive material. The central conflict is that a new visiting professor--Manny Reinhardt, a professional comedian who recently landed in hot water--is about to arrive. Narrator Megan Tusing takes listeners into the characters' psyches, which brim with anxiety, unrequited love, and musings on the meaning of humor. Though the meandering glimpses into the characters' minds and the small events that make up the day are intriguing, listeners seeking a plot-driven novel may be disappointed. Instead, Bordas urges the story toward philosophical dilemmas about writing, creating, and what it means to be funny. Tusing's narration is skillful, but it might not be enough to keep even the most diehard comedy lovers fully engaged. VERDICT Thoughtful and profound, but less funny than one might expect, this examination of the lives of comedy students may appeal to fans of Julius Taranto's How I Won a Nobel Prize.--Laura Stein

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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