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Running the Light

'The best novel I've ever read about comedy' Megan Nolan
Brief Description
THE BEST NOVEL I'VE EVER READ ABOUT COMEDY Megan Nolan GLORIOUSLY DEPRAVED Geoff Dyer LIT UP MY PLEASURE CENTRES AND LEFT ME STUNNED Rob Doyle Billy Ray Schafer stepped off the plane in Amarillo, Texas, with twenty-six hundred dollars tucked down the leg of his black... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2999
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Releases 25th August 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Running the Light" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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A 'thrilling, nauseating and painfully real' (MEGAN NOLAN) novel that follows struggling stand-up comedian Billy Ray Schafer over seven spun-out days in the American Southwest

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THE BEST NOVEL I'VE EVER READ ABOUT COMEDY Megan Nolan

GLORIOUSLY DEPRAVED Geoff Dyer

LIT UP MY PLEASURE CENTRES AND LEFT ME STUNNED Rob Doyle

Billy 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...

Debauched, divorced and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days, he travels from hell gig to hell gig across the American Southwest in search of a reason to keep living. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray is the answer to a tragic question: What happens when opportunity never arrives? Orโ€”worseโ€”when it comes and goes?

Exceptional . . . Running the Light is Dante as gag artist, trapped in a Diabolical Comedy. Or maybe, in the end, a disgraced Odysseus searching for a way back home to contrition and forgiveness. Read it and weep

IRISH TIMES

Nothing I've read hits the psycho-chemical abyss of road life turned horribly wrong quite like this
LIAS SAOUDI

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781399632874

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 14 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: White Rabbit

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 36.0mm

Width: 128.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 352

About the Author

Sam Tallent is a comedian. For the last decade he has performed more than 45 weekends per year across America, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia. His writing has appeared in Birdy Magazine and on VICE.com. Running the Light is his first novel.

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