Humor and the Beholder
by Thomas Albaugh
(#Giveaway details below)
Brief Synopsis of Book
When a reality TV scout “discovers” Walter in a diner near the hospice where his father has been placed, his life has reached a low point. His father is dying, his college teaching career is under threat, and his life is adrift. The scout wants him for a reality show about religion. In a more self-assured period of his life, Walter would have rejected her offer, but now he wavers and allows himself to be drawn in. Maybe this is the jolt of energy his life needs. Maybe, if the show succeeds, his university will be so impressed that they’ll finally treat him with respect. Maybe the show will even be what the producers promise it will be, a serious inquiry into faith. Maybe he’ll become famous.
The show brings Walter attention, but for all the wrong reasons. He is misquoted, misinterpreted, misunderstood, and then shot after he has been dragged across the country in an increasingly frustrating and absurd series of challenges. Will his career and reputation survive the publish protests? Will his marriage survive the hints of affairs on the road? Will any kind of “reality” emerge to restore his self-respect?
Thomas here:
One of my favorite teachers once pointed out that comedians never laugh. The next time I watched a comedy sketch, I realized he was right. The audience was laughing. The host was laughing. But the comedian appeared to be suffering.
So I hesitate to call Apocalypse TV, my first novel, comedic, or even funny. In fact, I’ve long learned as a writer to stop “trying to be funny.” I’ve found it best to simply write my way into a scene, and if I stay awake to what one friend calls “life’s little ironies,” sometimes the humor surfaces. But even then, not everyone is going to “get it.” Everything depends on the reader.
I have noticed also that the best comedy dwells very close to the tragic. Readers of Shakespeare have long noticed that what sometimes separates his tragedies from his comedies is the ending. My favorite comedic novels often have a serious side. People still die in them or have bad things happen to them. But it is the seriousness that leads us to recognize the grounds for what is humorous.
For the most part, I can claim that my novel, Apocalypse TV, is comedic for some people. My book begins seriously enough with the death of the narrative character’s father. In this shadow, the action takes place on a reality show that is low comedy, even as it takes place in the setting of some serious American history, like the Plymouth Colony replica, a setting and subtext meant to show how the first pilgrims to this continent lived. So the puzzle game played by the reality show contestants happens on ground that might have raised questions about grace, the end of the world, and how the pilgrims saw their “red” neighbors. In this situation, of a religious reality show being played out on the American continent, the trivial and the momentous are never far from each other.
I don’t know that anyone ever just sets out to write humor any more than anyone can intentionally write something that is holy. We can provide the story and the forms, but everything depends on our audience. For example, when I’ve read in public a line on the first page of my novel, it has sometimes elicited laughs. Sometimes it hasn’t. I’m not sure why either reaction has happened.
My hope, finally, is that my readers will enjoy the story. Laughter is always welcome.
Thomas Allbaugh is an associate professor of English at Azusa Pacific University, where he has taught Composition and Creative Writing since 2001. Currently, he lives in Southern California with his wife and their three surviving children. Apocalypse TV is his first novel.
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