Billy Ray Schafer is a road comedian. He's divorced, estranged from his family and travelling from one miserable gig to the next across the American Southwest, he spends seven days drinking, using drugs, fighting and performing for rooms that don't give a shit. 

Tallent’s debut novel is very funny, silly, but still fairly merciless novel about addiction, masculine performance, and the damages that ensure. 

Tallent knows stand-up from inside the machinery, so his distortion of his protagonist Billy Ray is grotesque, violent and frequently unbearable; the gripes Tallent has become clear. But thankfully, the book is smart enough to be it's own thing beyond cautionary tale or diatribe. First self-published through Tallent’s own Too Big To Fail Press in 2020 before being acquired and republished by Random House in 2025. 

Too Big To Fail Press, Denver, 2020. Early independent paperback edition; second printing. Foreword by Kyle Kinane. Signed by Sam Tallent on the title page. Very light shelf wear and minor edge wear only. Internally clean and unmarked apart from the author’s signature; binding firm. Near fine condition.