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The Material: A Novel,New
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A single momentous day transforms the lives of students and professors at a school for standup comedy in a novel that 'elucidates the irreconcilability of learning and living, of performance and being' (Rachel Cusk)Can comedy be taught? Someone, at some point, seemed to think so. The Chicago StandUp program has enrolled young comedians for nearly a decade.Its teachers and students all know how bits workin 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 isnt a punchline will either get you to a punchline or force you to be one.Theyre 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 Dorothythe only woman on the programs facultywho though preparing to launch a comeback tour cant tell if shes too abiding, too ambitious, or too ambivalent.Whether a visiting professorthe highprofile, controversysteeped comedian, Manny Reinhardtwill do more to help or harm their cause remains to be seen. But hes on his way. Hell be arriving sooner than anyone thinks.Riffing keenly across a diverse array of precisioncut 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.
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