What is Sam Tallent's novel Brut about, as he described it on Joe Rogan?

Sam Tallent told Joe Rogan that Brut is a hitman novel set largely in Paris, about an assassin who is supposed to be the best in the world but turns out to be as fallible as anyone. It started as a 30-page short story about a killer whose gun jams. Random House, which had reissued his first novel Running the Light, gave him a two-book deal and pushed him to expand it. Tallent said he hid a love story inside the violence, made the hitman gay, and used it to explore nihilism and existentialism.

• The title has no final E because it is the French spelling, and Tallent said it means raw.
• Tallent said he finished the book while spending all of May 2024 in Paris.
• Tallent said the book has been optioned and he plans to write the screenplay.
• Rogan said he was on chapter 10 and that the writing is unlike anyone else's.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Joe Rogan Experience (2026-11-03). Read the whole episode summary →

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