#2575 - Sam Tallent

Sam Tallent’s novel Brute began with a short-story premise: an allegedly exceptional assassin’s gun jams, revealing his frustration and fallibility. After writing 30 pages, Tallent pitched it to Random House, which had reissued his first novel, Running the Light, and offered him a two-book deal. He wanted Brute to work as accessible pulp fiction while telling a love story, with a gay protagonist and themes of nihilism and existentialism. Joe Rogan praised its unusual writing, vulnerability, and unpredictability. Tallent said it became an immediate national bestseller, was optioned, and that he plans to write the screenplay.

Tallent described Brute as a “love letter to prose,” drawing on genre fiction, Paris, French and Japanese writers, and his friends. He cited William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson as influences, while saying he disliked Naked Lunch because he found it lacked a discernible story. He criticized selective MFA programs and publishing houses for drawing from the same institutional circles, which he believes can produce fiction detached from ordinary life. He said The Paris Review and the Times Literary Supplement had not covered Brute, and argued that contemporary American novels often focus on wealthy people feeling bad about being wealthy. Rogan cautioned that Tallent might be judging the wider reading public by a small literary circle.

Tallent said he treats stand-up as a craft, regularly reviewing recordings, testing new approaches, and shelving material that does not fit in a folder he calls “orphans.” He considers his current material his best, but warned that both chasing praise and dismissing criticism can distort an artist’s judgment. He began comedy in 2005, when he felt comics could focus on being funny and working clubs without today’s promotional demands. Social-media posting still feels embarrassing and stressful to him; Rogan advised comics to announce shows, then avoid reading comments. Tallent’s approach to audience-building was to turn first-time viewers into repeat fans who bring others, recalling Omaha audiences growing from 40 to 80 and then 160.

Tallent called his performance at Kill Tony’s London O2 show the worst experience of his artistic life. About 16,000 people attended, and he recalled drunk spectators shouting, fights, and what he thought might have been a stabbing. The bucket performers faced intense heckling despite some having performed stand-up only six times; after one said he was from Israel, audience members shouted abuse and one tried to climb the barricade. Tallent told Tony the situation was unsafe, and Tony acted to remove the person. Tallent said the circumstances overwhelmed the crew, and afterward he called his wife and considered becoming a teacher. He questioned whether he wanted to be an arena act, while still describing Kill Tony as a valuable opportunity for unknown comics to gain repeat appearances and sell out clubs.

Tallent enjoys performing and meeting fans, but frequent travel, ticket tracking, and self-promotion wear him down. He can sell about 600 tickets per weekend in a city and considers that the scale he wants; he does not want to be on the road 60 dates a year. He contrasted roughly $10 for a 10-minute New York spot with about $200 for an hour on the road, while noting that papered shows can fill seats and raise drink sales but may draw less-invested, chattier crowds. Extreme fame also seems costly to him: citing Shane Gillis’s difficulty getting coffee without photo requests, Tallent said he would rather have less money and keep ordinary privacy. He said people are generally kind to him in person, even when they disagree, while people hate him online.

The conversation’s broader concern was whether technology and media are changing work, attention, and human control. Rogan predicted robots could eliminate many jobs within five to ten years and suggested value generated by AI automation might fund a universal high income; he also argued that live performance could persist and provide meaning when work no longer does. Speakers worried that AI might become more capable than humans, escape human control, or fail to value human life, while acknowledging an optimistic possibility that it could allocate resources more rationally. They discussed an AI race involving the United States, China, and Russia, and raised claims about AI agents communicating or threatening a programmer, but the details were unclear. A speaker cited a 10% chance of AI destroying humanity, attributing that estimate to people involved in AI. The discussion treated these risks as uncertain, not established outcomes, and also questioned whether social-media algorithms and online outrage pull attention away from in-person relationships and fresh experience.