The Ballad of Billy Ray
A Review of
Sam Tallent’s
Comedy Novel, ‘Running the Light’
by: Jane Malone
“Is it just me or have all of our black presidents looked exactly the same?” - Billy Ray Schafer
Sam Tallent is a fucking hilarious comedian. I had expected his unedited, chaotic, often frenetic stand-up energy to propel his novel, and surprisingly, was met with almost the exact opposite. Sam has a thoughtful, deliberate prose that deftly guides the reader through a melancholy field of spent potential with a tender sensitivity and blunt insight. In his novel, “Running the Light,” he tells the twilight story of a comedy career that has run its course through show biz, and now lingers only in the memories of a handful of old-time hacks and chuckle-fuckers of yore.
“To risk your autonomy for a chance at something better, to literally bet your life, is both definitively stupid and inarguably brave. He gave it a shot and that’s more than most can say”
Tallent writes, of his protagonist’s (Billy Ray Shafer), lifelong, stumbling search for his place within the entertainment industry. He skillfully captures the palpable desperation and longing of a now-waning, multiple-decade career, narrating with a sure-footed authority and humor as black as midnight.
In Hollywood, a city where you’re only as good as your last project; Billy Ray is a decade from his last good project, and he’s not nearly far enough from his last big scandal. His career, hell, his life is winding down. And, now he has to come to terms with the future that he’s made for himself, or, more realistically, the future he hasn’t made. “Despite his failures with sobriety, monogamy, business, and fatherhood, he was still funny, and funny is the hardest thing to be,” Tallent describes Billy Ray. And, Billy Ray is funny, make no mistake. He’s also rude, out of touch, narcissistic, cruel, and guilty of statutory. But, this is showbiz, kid, and there is a pretty stout Venn between comics and sex offenders.
Tallent presents the duality of Billy Ray’s life in perfect tempo, with a brutal honesty that rings far too true; the inevitable implosion is visceral and painful. Is it self-fulfilling prophesy or just rank self-sabotage if a man won’t reject the behaviors that he knows will tear his life apart? Is Billy Ray a victim of cancel culture or is he rightly canceled for lack of any culture?
In revealing Billy Ray’s struggle with his own demons; substances, sex, the excesses of a transient life, and fighting the inevitable entropy of stand up, Tallent highlights the plight and certain end of every comedian. At some point in every comedy career, the jokes move on, tastes and times change, and you find yourself a dinosaur on the eve of impact. We witness the comet approach Billy Ray, and knowing his lifes’ work is a puff of smoke in the breeze, we hear his lonely, haunted death rattle, and brace for impact.
Does a man deserve redemption in the minds of the family he abandoned to pursue his dream of making strangers laugh? Why is he driven towards an impossible forgiveness from a mirage of an ex-wife and ex-son, and yearning for a home and family that he deserted decades ago? Tallent presents his readers with difficult, probing questions regarding fame, real legacy, and the fleeting state of being alive. And, though he may not answer more than he asks, the conversation proves to be challenging, interesting, and deeply, darkly funny.
by Jane Malone
Check out Sam Tallent’s website for more on him!
Jane Malone is an Oregon-based comedian, and the second-place winner of the 2020 Joking Bad: Portland’s Dirtiest Comedian Competition. She is a founding member of the Bad Girls Comedy Stand Up Troupe, and has opened for comedians Beth Stelling, David Huntsberger, Brandie Posey, Derek Sheen and Kyle Kinane. She has been featured at the Savage Henry Comedy Festival, the D.B. Cooper Comedy Festival, and is also a contributing writer for Savage Henry Humor Magazine, and EIC of Little Treat Comedy Zine.