The Material

'Brilliance is on display' Percival Everett

Camille Bordas author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Profile Books Ltd

Published:4th Jul '24

Should be back in stock very soon

This hardback is available in another edition too:

The Material cover

A literary star ascending makes her UK debut with a novel about the funniest people's saddest stories

'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.

A disquisition into the nature of comedy and creativity. Like the best comedians ... Bordas is alert to the deeper joke -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * Sunday Times *
It's funny, intelligent and has much to say about how we live now * Financial Times *
Amusing... impressive * New York Times *
Marvellously engaging and entertaining ... full of terrific moments and cutting dialogue * Independent *
Fully imagined ... often effortless * Observer *
Surprising and powerful ... The Material is often acutely insightful and sometimes very, very funny. Recommended * Irish Times *
An invigorating blend of earnest soul-searching and hilarious set-pieces ... The Material is literary fiction at its most ambitious and accessible. Encore! * Buzz Magazine *
Skilful, engrossing ... the characters are fully realized, immediately present to the reader, and Bordas's observations are sharp * Times Literary Supplement *
Funny, intelligent and has much to say about how we live now -- George Cochrane * Financial Times *
There's definitely a quirky wryness here ... When we can't explain why something was funny, we say: You had to be there. This is the fictional embodiment of that kind of mic drop. * Spectator *
Smart, compelling and witty * i Paper *
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
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
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
Brilliant * Literary Review *
Thoughtful ... Bordas is so funny herself, her observations about the narcissism and insularity of creative types are very good and her deadpan delivery means they tend to land. She proceeds with a spry, associative logic * London Review of Books *

ISBN: 9781805220060

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 38mm

Weight: 460g

352 pages

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