Camille Bordas – författare

A BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING PICK 'One of the best new collections I've read in a long time' TELEGRAPH 5-STAR REVIEW'Camille Bordas is an invaluable new voice' GEORGE SAUNDERSA young woman takes stock following a burglary. A teenager becomes obsessed with the obituaries in a weekly magazine. Grandchildren mourn the grandparents who loved them and the ones who didn't. Painters and almost-painters try to distinguish Good Art from Bad Art. People grapple with life-altering illness, unrequited love and promises they have every intention of keeping. Some win the lottery. Some don't.In this prismatic new collection, Camille Bordas's complex, wry, sometimes dark and always self-aware stories open a window onto the truths and misapprehensions of our shared, flawed humanity.

An absorbing, darkly comedic novel that brilliantly evokes the confusions of adolescence and marks the arrival of an extraordinary young talent.Isidore Mazal is eleven years old, the youngest of six siblings living in a small French town. He doesn''t quite fit in. Berenice, Aurore, and Leonard are on track to have doctorates by age twenty-four. Jeremie performs with a symphony, and Simone, older than Isidore by eighteen months, expects a great career as a novelist--she''s already put Isidore to work on her biography. The only time they leave their rooms is to gather on the old, stained couch and dissect prime-time television dramas in light of Aristotle''s Poetics.Isidore has never skipped a grade or written a dissertation. But he notices things the others don''t, and asks questions they fear to ask. So when tragedy strikes the Mazal family, Isidore is the only one to recognize how everyone is struggling with their grief, and perhaps the only one who can help them—if he doesn''t run away from home first.Isidore’s unstinting empathy, combined with his simmering anger, makes for a complex character study, in which the elegiac and comedic build toward a heartbreaking conclusion. With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost.

“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.”—Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You “Brilliance is on display here.”—Percival Everett, author of James and The TreesCan comedy be taught? Someone, at some point, seemed to think so. The Chicago Stand-Up MFA program has enrolled young comedians for nearly a decade.Its teachers and students all know how bits work—in 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 isn’t a punch line will either get you to a punch line or force you to be one.They’re 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 Dorothy—the only woman on the program’s faculty—who though preparing to launch a comeback tour can’t tell if she’s too abiding, too ambitious, or too ambivalent.Whether a visiting professor—the high-profile, controversy-steeped comedian Manny Reinhardt—will do more to help or harm their cause remains to be seen. But he’s on his way. He’ll be arriving sooner than anyone thinks.Riffing keenly across a diverse array of precision-cut 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.

'Utterly charming ... Bordas is an invaluable new voice' George Saunders 'A disquisition into the nature of comedy and creativity. Like the best comedians ... Bordas is alert to the deeper joke' Sunday Times 'Amusing... impressive' New York Times 'Marvellously engaging and entertaining ... full of terrific moments and cutting dialogue' Independent Every comedian knows that there's a line between sharp and cruel, that sad becomes funny at the right angle, that any moment in life, however painful or triumphant, has the potential to become a punchline. At the Chicago Stand-up School, success is about the material.But maybe Artie is too handsome to be taken seriously on stage, Olivia too scared to examine her past, and Phil too afraid to cause harm. Their teachers are obsessed with failure: Kruger trying to command his father's respect, Ashbee weary of the way his Blackness attracts a type of white admirer, Dorothy wondering how her talent is connected to her loneliness. Whether a visiting comedian-the famous, controversy-steeped Manny Reinhardt-will do more to help or to harm their cause remains to be seen.Set over the course of a single day, and shifting exquisitely between several points of view, The Material examines life through the eyes of a band of outsiders bound together by the need to laugh, and the desire to make others laugh even harder.

''Utterly charming ... Bordas is an invaluable new voice'' George Saunders ''A disquisition into the nature of comedy and creativity. Like the best comedians ... Bordas is alert to the deeper joke'' Sunday Times''Marvellously engaging and entertaining ... full of terrific moments and cutting dialogue'' IndependentEvery comedian knows that there''s a line between sharp and cruel, that sad becomes funny at the right angle, that any moment in life, however painful or triumphant, can be turned into a punchline. But at the Chicago Stand-up School, it seems as if the students and teachers are just too wounded, mixed up, self-involved or fearful to land the joke. It''s unclear whether the visiting tutor - successful, controversial Manny Reinhardt - will help or hinder their progress. Set over the course of a single day, The Material examines life through the eyes of these misfits bound together by the need to laugh, and to make others laugh even harder.''This novel is so smart. Camille Bordas has exposed the "material" of stand-up by making stand-up her material. Brilliance is on display here'' Percival Everett, Booker-shortlisted author of James