"An Aspiring Stand-Up Comic Searches for His Funny Bone"
Reviewed by Min Jung
Posted August 17, 2011
Fiction
Oliver Miles is an aspiring stand-up comedian. In the
meantime, however, he works as a security guard for a hotel
that may or may not be haunted. The hotel has just hired a
new night auditor, Mattie, who the manager doesn't entirely
trust (which may have to do with her criminal history).
When Mattie starts, hotel guests coincidentally begin to
report a string of burglaries. But this story is really more about Oliver trying to cut it
in the world of stand-up comedy. Since he was a child, he's
been friend's with Roscoe, who owns a comedy club called
Downers. Famous comedians have come from miles away to stop
at Downers, and Oliver would love nothing more but to make
it onto Downer's stage. He did one time, but it was a
surprise appearance and he flopped - big-time. Roscoe has
never let him forget it, and he has never let him have a
second chance. While he toils away working various open-mic nights, Oliver
finds that he is oddly attracted to Mattie. However, is she
behind the mysterious happenings at the hotel? She does
seem to know about lock-picking, and when the manager gets
security cameras installed, Oliver can't help but notice
that Mattie wanders the hallways an awful lot for someone
who is a night auditor. In spite of this, however, Oliver
and Mattie begin forming a friendship of sorts. Then Oliver begins retooling his comedy act by retelling
stories about Mattie and his mother, who lives in a nursing
home, although she is not elderly - she suffers from a
chronic disease caused by her alcoholism. But how will he
deal with the consequences when those he cares about most
discover he's been using them as material to get ahead? While I thoroughly enjoyed Oliver's character and his
struggle to reconcile his relationship with his mother (as
most people do when they love an alcoholic), I found this
book to be uneven. Some of the other high points included
Oliver's open-mic scenes and the scene where he met Mattie's
family. But the book was peppered with too many off-beat
characters. And it started with two "gotcha" scenes in
which the author pulled a bait-and-switch on the reader.
While there was a reason for the second one, after the first
one, the second one just felt cheap and redundant. I did
enjoy that the ending was not thoroughly predictable, and I
felt that Oliver learned the important lessons throughout his
journey, which made the read worthwhile.
SUMMARY
In his second novel, author Michael Snyder delivers another
honest, authentic, and intriguing plot carried along by
quirky characters whose actions and reactions still manage
to look and sound like the rest of us.It is often said that
every good joke contains some basic truth. In A Stand-Up
Guy, aspiring comedian Oliver Miles puts that axiom to the
test when he revamps his comedy act by filling it with
darkly personal truths about friends and family. But, as the
edgy humor begins to attract more attention, the young
comic's personal life gets more complicated. When he
realizes he has managed to turn the two women he cares about
most into props for his act, he wonders if his honesty
on-stage is making him dishonest in life. Despite the
sobering reality of his world off stage, the laughter and
the success is intoxicating, even for a stand-up guy.A
Stand-Up Guy is a real story about real people struggling
with life's rights and wrongs. It will appeal to anyone who
enjoys a uniquely-woven relational drama threaded with a
little mystery and delivered with a lot of humor and insight.
ExcerptChapter One
Oliver Miles paced backstage, sporadically wetting his
lips while trying not to wet his pants. He peered around the
thick drapes, but all he could see was blackness where the
crowd was supposed to be.
He closed his eyes, intent on mentally rehearsing a new
bit about reality TV shows, but all he could think about was
his mother, wishing she could be here to see him perform.
Maybe then he’d know whether to thank her for the
inspiration ...or blame her.
According to Delores Miles, her son was born funny. Her
simple declaration had planted itself in the fertile soil of
his nine-year-old brain then sprouted like Jack’s proverbial
beanstalk. And it was this weird alchemy of language and
inspiration that transformed a needling boyhood curiosity
into his lifelong obsession with making -people laugh. So
for more than a decade, Oliver honed his blossoming sense of
humor into kind of a sixth sense, perfecting his mother’s
uncanny ability to "find the funny" in any situation, no
matter how mundane, morbid, or even tragic. Creating
laughter became Oliver’s calling card, his shield, sword,
and escape hatch. It was his alter ego, his imaginary
friend, his security blanket. It was not, however, such a
great way to make a living.
Oliver paged through his notebook a final time as if
cramming for a test, then squinted into the blackness once
more, trying in vain to make out the actual faces in the
gloom. Finally his gaze drifted to the exact center of the
stage where the spotlight had painted a lopsided moon,
silhouetting a skinny microphone stand. The padded barstool,
which now served as an oversized coaster for his sweating
tumbler of ice water, remained in the shadows.
His mission was simple enough. Walk out onstage—no,
scratch that—command the stage, and deliver a
ten-minute set of stand-up comedy. This gig would neither
make nor break his career. That particular gig was still
more than two months away, provided he survived the audition.
Still, when the emcee’s voice echoed in his head, panic
struck him like a pebble in a pond, rippling outward in
small, strutting waves until the rest of him shook as badly
as his hands.
It was show time.
Oliver closed his eyes and mouthed the words of the
emcee’s scripted introduction. He never allowed himself to
imagine wild ovations; that way he would never be
disappointed. After wetting his now-chapped lips a final
time, Oliver Miles strode out from the wings and across the
familiar stage. The wooden planks creaked and groaned under
his feet.
He snatched the microphone from the stand, fixed his gaze
on some random spot in the crowd, and delivered his
trademark opening.
"Let us pray," he said, bowing his head somberly. He
paused for effect, popped one eye open for a quick, nervous
scan of the crowd, then mumble-whispered a litany of
heartfelt syllables that culminated in a breathless Amen.
"There," he said, as if something had actually been
settled. "If you -people don’t have a good time tonight,
it’s not my fault."
Oliver ignored the abject lack of crowd response and
forged ahead. Years of practicing in front of his bedroom
mirror had taught him more than a few ways to cope with
uninspiring feedback from uninspired crowds. He’d learned to
simply invent laughter as needed, then have his brain insert
it like a laugh track on a sitcom. After all, didn’t he know
his own material better than a roomful of strangers? Was he
not the expert on his own jokes? For the most part,
audiences merely confirmed what Oliver already knew.
This flimsy bit of self-deception almost always worked
too. Like WD-40, it displaced his sagging confidence and
greased the rusty hinges of his vocal cords. In fact, it was
working tonight. He was a machine, setting up one joke,
punching it just right, tagging it a time or two, then
slipping in and out of segues like a runway model swapping
outfits backstage.
Oliver used the glow of the spotlight to check his watch.
He’d timed his set perfectly so far. Just two more jokes to
go, then hit the closer, say goodnight, and go back to work.
But the laughter building inside his head ceased when the
house lights came on, temporarily blinding the newly
befuddled comedian midsentence and filling his head with
deafening silence.
As his eyes recalibrated, so did his brain. The tables
scattered around the ballroom were empty, just like they
were twenty minutes ago when he’d set up the microphone
stand, placed his water glass on the barstool, and killed
the house lights in favor of the spot. Vacant chairs, all
sporting the garish hotel insignia, were still piled high on
dollies. And the spotlight, now rendered impotent, mocked
Oliver and just made his eyes hurt.
His mystified gaze finally landed on the only other sign
of life in the room, a shadowy female form in full
Harrington Hotel regalia—a unisex ensemble of dark
slacks, white dress shirt, and a maroon vest. Her brassy
nametag glinted in the glow of the sparkling chandelier. She
looked familiar, but in a distant, impersonal way. Like an
extra in a really old movie or a headshot from his
grandmother’s yearbook.
Oliver clipped the microphone back on the stand,
retrieved his notebook from the wings, and descended the
steps with all the nonchalance he could muster. As he made
his way across the ballroom, he glanced under tables and
behind curtains or wherever else imaginary villains might be
lurking. He stopped a few feet in front of the intruder and
leaned casually on the back of a chair. They exchanged
bewildered expressions as the silence loomed between them,
vacuum packed, coiled like a spring.
"I was just, you know .?.?." Oliver’s voice sounded
shrill, lilting with unintended question marks. "...making
my rounds. I am the security guard, after all."
"You’re Oscar, right?"
"It’s Oliver."
"Right," she said. "Sorry."
It was obviously Oliver’s turn to speak. But every time
he opened his mouth the sluicing roar of adrenaline made it
impossible to focus on forming words. His addled brain
peppered him with unanswerable questions: When had she come
in? How much did she hear? What had she thought of his
material? What must she think of him? Not to mention his
idiotic uniform. The question he finally settled on was So,
how may I help you? But it came out like: "So, what are you
doing here anyway?"
"Working," she said. "Same as you."
"Oh." Oliver braced himself for the undertow of sarcasm
in her tone. But there was no subtext, no irony, no ridicule
or disappointment or threat of sanction. As far as he could
tell she was wholly earnest.
"We met at my orientation last week."
"Right," he said as a vague memory of a quick
introduction a few days ago began to emerge. All he could
recall was that she had a little boy’s name, a little girl’s
haircut, and a seeming inability to break eye contact. But
that version of this girl had been a throwback to another
era, something mid-sixties, pre-hippie, a mash-up of chiffon
and velvet and patent leather. All that remained now was her
lazy bouffant flip.
Oliver tried not to be too obvious as he allowed his gaze
to migrate to her nametag. That’s when it finally dawned on
him that he was staring at the hotel’s new night auditor,
the only other person he would see or talk to for the
countless hours that comprised the graveyard shift.
He was mid-squint when she said, "It’s Matilda. They
misspelled it on my nametag."
"Right, nice to see you again, Matilda. I thought—"
"Please," she said, "call me Mattie."
"Got it. But I thought you didn’t start till next week,
Mattie."
"That was the plan," she said. "But I think the last girl
eloped or something. So Mr. Sherman called and asked if I
could start a little early."
So much for having the hotel to himself for an entire week.
"Anyhow," she continued. "I had to work late at my other
job. So I told Mr. Sherman I’d be a little tardy tonight.
Turns out, it was later than I thought."
"It’ll be our little secret," he said, shocked at how
creepy it sounded and wishing he could take it back.
"Are you okay?"
"Sure," he said, although her unrelenting eye contact was
making him a bit dizzy. "Why do you ask?"
"Because ever since I flipped the lights on, you look
like you swallowed a curling iron."
"How does that look exactly?"
"Bug-eyed, sweaty, short of breath, and blushing in too
many places at once."
Oliver chuckled. Her obvious attempt at humor sanded the
edge off his humiliation. But she never smiled back. She
simply stared. And blinked.
"Anyhow," she continued, "I’m just glad I finally found you."
Finally? he thought, then said, "You are?"
"Yeah, you got a phone message."
"I did?"
"I think her name was Lindsey. Said she’d call back later."
In the three years Oliver had worked security for the
Harrington Hotel, he’d never once received a phone message.
And as far as he knew he’d never met a Lindsey before. He
was about to indulge a few morbid thoughts about his mother
when Mattie spoke up again.
"And I’m pretty sure we were just robbed."
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