A frightfully nervous Tig Notaro stood just offstage at the Los Angeles comedy club Largo while the compère introduced her.
The audience of 300 and Notaro’s fellow performers that August night had no idea what she was about to do. They had no idea she was going to address the trauma and pain that had been the past few months of her life, or relay the bad news she had received just days earlier.
“Good evening! Hello. I have cancer. How are you?”
With those words – said cavalierly in the normal stand-up greeting manner – Notaro launched into a 30-minute performance that has now become legendary in comedy circles. For in the audience that night was the stand-up great Louis C?K, who insisted she release the largely unrehearsed show as a comedy album. Now it is available for US$5 (Dh18) on his website and has sold more than 60,000 copies.
The 41-year-old Notaro, a stand-up veteran of 15 years, was in the middle of a string of misfortunes: She had been hospitalised and debilitated by clostridium difficile, her mother had died in a tragic accident, she went through a relationship break-up and, days earlier, she had found out she had breast cancer.
Notaro is now back from the brink. She had a double mastectomy and doctors believe the cancer has been removed, with recurrence unlikely. She has signed a book deal with Ecco Press. Her debut comedy album, Good One, is among the best-sellers on iTunes. "I didn't expect any of it – the good or the bad – and to the degrees that things have happened!" says Notaro.
