The Material
A Novel
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- 12,99 €
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- 12,99 €
Publisher Description
“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, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You
“Brilliance is on display here.”—Percival Everett, author of James and The Trees
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
