Most cult figures wind up being cult figures by accident on their way to being something else. Not Patrice O’Neal. For years, Patrice pursued conventional success, only to find it hollow and lacking. Ditching the tepid atmosphere of L.A. for the edgier comedy scene of London, Patrice honed and perfected an act and a persona that traffics in the shocking and the profane—on subjects social, political, and disturbingly personal and honest. Finding his own voice abroad made him a comedian’s comedian back in the States, and led to three cable-TV comedy special as well as a cultural niche as a thinker and sometimes pundit. (You can catch him occasionally on, of all places, FOX News.) In discussing his evolution as a comic—and as a human being—Patrice insists on the need for authenticity and personal truth, and why everything else is just bullshit.

Patrice’s conversation with Paul Provenza is in the book.