The Material

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

A disquisition into the nature of comedy and creativity. Like the best comedians ... Bordas is alert to the deeper joke

Amusing... impressive

Marvellously engaging and entertaining ... full of terrific moments and cutting dialogue

Surprising and powerful ... The Material is often acutely insightful and sometimes very, very funny. Recommended

The comedian as the aptest illustration of contemporary morality...What begins as a clever conceit becomes an interrogation of sadness itself.

Utterly charming . . . moving, witty, funny, and especially wonderful for the mature kind-heartedness of its view of humanity. Bordas is an invaluable new voice

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

Funny, humane and slyly philosophical

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

Bordas will enchant her readers. . . . She is J.D. Salinger as a French woman-what more could you want?"

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

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

An invigorating blend of earnest soul-searching and hilarious set-pieces ... The Material is literary fiction at its most ambitious and accessible. Encore!

Fully imagined ... often effortless

Smart, compelling and witty

Camille Bordas is the author of three previous prize-winning novels. The third, How to Behave in a Crowd, was the first she wrote in English. The earlier two, Partie Commune and Les Treize Desserts, were written in her native French. Her short stories regularly appear in the New Yorker. Born in France, raised in Mexico City and Paris, she currently lives in Chicago.

ISBN 9781805220060