Sam Tallent wrote the best (and bleakest) novel about comedians

Back in 2020, comedian Sam Tallent self-published Running the Light, a road novel about Billy Ray Schafer, a stand-up comic travelling across the American Southwest in search of something – anything – to remedy his dwindling faith in humanity, his career, and himself. Tallent was soon shipping copies of it by the thousand out of his garage, a sensation among fellow comedians who saw themselves reflected in its pages. Now, UK imprint White Rabbit is re-issuing Running the Light proper, to get it in front of people who might’ve missed out on its ingenuity.

​“Running the Light is literary fiction. It’s pretty and brutal, disgusting and authentic,” Tallent says. ​“I hope readers of prose buy it and read it and argue about it at high society cocktail parties. Or better yet, maybe it can be labelled heresy by the Church and I can go on one of your panel shows and defend its legitimacy seated beside Jamie Oliver. The sky’s the limit with White Rabbit and I’m very grateful for everyone involved.”

To mark the occasion, Irish author Megan Nolan gave Tallent a call to ask him all about Running the Light, Louis C.K.’s distaste for it, and the worst he’s ever bombed. If you want more, Tallent will be at The Social London tonight to discuss more RTL with Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi. Grab your tickets here.

Hi, Sam. You’re in Paris right now. What’s going on?

Well, on the surface it’s because my next novel is set in Paris. But really I just wanted to come over here for as long as possible, and this was a way that I could do it without feeling bad about not working. Tomorrow I’m going to the UK for six days to do shows. Do you like doing readings?

I like doing readings with my friends. I like organising my own events. I don’t love doing formal bookshop in-conversations. I don’t like having to sound smart, I think, is my biggest thing.

My whole career as a comic, every inch of me just hates any kind of self-aggrandising. I think of all of my friends listening to me read out of my book and pause afterwards for the literary echoes, and them being like, ​“Oh, loser”.

Did anyone disagree with your depiction of comedians in the Running the Light?

Yeah, Louis C.K. did not like the book.

What was his problem?

There wasn’t enough masturbating in front of unwitting accomplices. No, he didn’t like that I told – allegedly, this is what Shane Gillis told me – some of the stories that were ​“our” stories. He said that some of those were just for comedians and it wasn’t my place to tell them.

Like magicians.

I guess, yeah. I was revealing too many secrets about how to saw the girl in half. I really don’t know. He sounded a million years old. That critique sounds very antiquated and strange to me.

What’s your background in writing?

I went to college because I had to. I studied rhetoric and public address, it was a communications major. I was already doing improv and stand-up – rhetoric and public address seemed like it would apply to that, but it was really just studying a bunch of Ronald Reagan speeches and why Hitler was an effective communicator.

Did you learn a lot from Hitler?

Well, I learned how to move a crowd. That guy… say what you will about his politics, but the man knew how to bring people to their feet! [Laughs] No, I mean, there was obviously a lot I was learning, but I dropped out as soon as I could pay my rent from stand-up.

So you were doing it full time at that point?

Yeah, by the time I was 21. It’s the only job that I’ve had since I drove an ice cream truck when I was 19. To answer your question, I was not educated in writing, but I did always want to write.

I dropped out too, from Trinity, and then just drank consistently for 24 months or so.

Yeah. I did the same thing, but it was about 10 years of consistent drinking. Trinity’s in Dublin, right? I think I’ve been to the campus. It’s beautiful. Where’d you grow up?

I’m from Waterford, which is the southeast coast of Ireland. I lived in Dublin and then London for 10 years, and now I’m in New York.

I think you guys are the funniest. I think you guys or the Australians are the funniest.

Wait, you think Australians are funny?

Dude, they’re so funny. I think you guys get the worst version because they come over and try and do all your coke, which they do in America too. But as far as talking to them, they’re just insane. They’re feral, and I really like that. And I think the Irish have a lyricism to your comedy.

What Irish comedians do you like?

I like Richie Brie and a guy named Mike Rice. I’ve had the pleasure of opening for Tommy Tiernan a couple times, and he was very nice to me. There’s a comic named Katie Boyle who’s very funny. I did the festival in Dublin last summer, and I met so many of ​’em. They were all just delightful.

I did stand-up for two months when I was 19 years old. I really liked it, but then I did it in front of a real audience instead of the 12 weirdos who would come to the shows and then I was like, oh, I can’t do that.

I was lucky I dodged that. I was in the mountain time zone of America, so we did have all of the fun, freaky, weird comedy shows where you could do the more creative shit, but then we had to learn how to do it missionary style in oil fields.

I got into it because I really liked Steve Martin’s book, Born Standing Up, but I didn’t have a sturdy enough ego for it. I’m not very good at working at things that don’t have a defined outcome.

I’m very good at working at shit that might not have any kind of outcome ever.

Is that because you enjoy the process?

I think what’s cool about stand-up is that when you’re open mic-ing, you see all these fucking freaks who shouldn’t be allowed to speak, but there they are.

I miss going to open mics all the time, where obviously so much of it is just intolerable, boring garbage. I once went to one where there was somebody who was so hateful… The content of what he was saying was hateful, but also he was kind of sad and pathetic and shy, which is a very bad combination of things. And so the whole room was filled with this seething hatred that was coming towards him in waves, and it was really amazing to be there.

That guy that you just described, he is the dude at every open mic in America. And when those guys don’t make it, and they just form their crew of malignant cancerous men, and then they start running shows. Man, when they finally find their crowd… you want to talk about Hitler moving the room? These guys, it’s so scary.

What is the worst that you’ve ever bombed?

Oh, unequivocally in Dublin at the comedy festival last year.

Wow. Really?

Yes, 100 per cent. I was opening for Tommy Tiernan in the big tent. The night before, I did this set about my wife being an abortion provider and it slayed. It’s something I’m proud of. It’s smart. And then I did it in front of Tommy Tiernan’s crowd for 600 people, and about three minutes in – and I’m not being vulgar or disgusting, I’m championing my wife in this bit – a woman stood up and ran out crying. Three minutes in. Before I even get to the meat of the thing. And then probably five minutes in, a woman says, ​“Quit while you’re ahead”. And I said, ​“Ma’am, I couldn’t be less ahead”. I get off and Tommy Tiernan is there, and he’s like, ​“Oh, Sam, what you did was so brave. You didn’t equivocate to them and you had your game plan and you stuck to it. And it was just beautiful to see a man in the eye of the storm persist.” I was like, ​“Well, yeah, but I bombed”. And he went, ​“Yes, of course you bombed”.

Why did you want to write about the kind of character you did in Running The Light?

It’s a horror story to me. I think writing about something that’s truly scary to you is easy because you have accidentally thought about all the ins and outs. What’s defined my adult life has been stand-up, so it was easy to write about stand-up, and it was easy to write about a guy who is the opposite of what I want my life’s devotion to turn into.

You’re writing your second novel. How far into it are you?

I got the first draft done, and now I’m just in Paris walking the streets.

How are you feeling?

I feel really good about it. Hopefully it’s a giant commercial success, and then I can do whatever the fuck I want for the rest of my life.

I hope that for you too.

Yeah. You know Otessa Moshfegh? She allegedly wrote one of her books to be a giant commercial success so that she could write whatever she wanted to after that. I think that’s something we should explore more as authors.

I would love to do that. But I don’t think I would be able to do even if I tried. And kind of think I’m going to die any day all the time, so I’d be afraid to squander a book.

Me too. But I love that fear because then I actually do the work. I know that one day I’ll be old and withered and dead.

For me, it’s mostly that I want to hang out with my friends all the time. That’s my reaction to being afraid that I’ll die.

I’m concerned because the people I sell books to don’t read books, so this will be the only book that some guy reads next year. I know that to be true, because I sign their books after shows. The biggest compliment I can get is when some dead eyed young 4chan acolyte comes to a show and they’re like, ​“Hey, I loved your book. Do you have any suggestions?” And then I can tell them, yes, read Flannery O’Connor. I write in their books, and then next time I see ​’em, they tell me if they read ​’em or not.

Did you read Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte? I would be curious to know if that crosses into the world of the kinds of people you’re describing.

No. I think that they only read Tao Lin and that Hollowbeck guy whose name I can’t pronounce from France.

Oh, yes. You should learn to say it in French. They’ll be very happy there.

What is it?

I think it’s ​“Houllebecq”.

Houllebecq?

Yeah.

Merci. ​“Peux-je avoir une book de Houllebecq?”

That’s beautiful.

Fancy a copy of Running the Light? Order it here