My new novel,
Stay Up With Hugo Best, is set in the world of late night comedy. It follows a young writer’s assistant and the host of a popular show as they spend a weekend together after the show’s cancellation. When people hear about it, they often assume that I lived it, or that I embedded with a late night staff, shadowing a page or an assistant, sitting in on the writer’s room. When I tell them I did neither I can see their disappointment. It’s less exciting to have read books I ordered from the library. Less glamorous that I listened to comedy albums and interviewed people over the phone.
It’s daunting, too, attempting to write about a subculture of which you are not a part. There are several challenges, chief among them getting things wrong...