A bona fide “instant classic” (Doug Stanhope) novel that tells the story of a road comic crashing and burning by acclaimed comedian Sam Tallent\nBilly Ray Schafer stepped off the plane in Amarillo, Texas, with twenty-six hundred dollars tucked down the leg of his black ostrich-skin cowboy boot. He walked to baggage claim slowly, jelly-legged and nearing lucidity, coming out from under the Xanax he snorted before the flight.\nDebauched, divorced, and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father—comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: What happens when opportunity doesn't come—or worse—it comes and goes?\n“In vivid, electric sentences that read like cinematic tracking shots,” (Denver Post) Tallent hurls you into an absolute mess of a man’s life as we search for the mercy he does not want.

Running the Light: A Novel

Humor & Entertainment

Tallent, Sam

Humor

Random House Trade Paperbacks

From Sam Tallent, author of the hit indie novel Running the Light, which Marc Maron calls "a beautiful rendering of a dark reality", comes a story about poverty, addiction, and bare-knuckle boxing set in the shadows of the American heartland. Teenaged Jesse is trapped. Growing up, he had all the potential in the world, but then real life intervened. Now he's got a high school diploma, two perpetually black eyes, and a pill fix he can't shake. By day, when he's not high on pain killers, Jesse is hardening his body; it's the only thing about his life that he can really control. By night, he's a god in the makeshift ring under the barnyard flood lights, willing to take on any local tough the Madsen brothers put in front of him. Most of Jesse's fights don't last more than a minute or two. But as competition in town dries up, the Madsens go looking for better fights and bigger risks - with the chance for bigger payouts. Even as Jesse's home life is closing in on him, he must find a way to win one more fight. It's the only chance he's got.

Attaboy

Literature & Fiction

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

Sin supervivientes

Contra

Running the Light

Humor & Satire

Blackstone Pub

Literary

Independently published

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Books by Tallent, Sam