The Hardest Part of Schizophrenia Is Spelling Schizophrenia

A Memoir

De: Byron Bowers, Julie Seabaugh

From a fearless comic known for tackling uncomfortable topics, a revealing and subversive memoir that explores a difficult Georgia childhood and an unlikely rise in the LA comedy world

Byron Bowers is a Comics’ Comic. A veteran of stand-up known for gripping material covering spirituality, race, socioeconomics, gender roles—and for delivering a fair chunk of it completely unrehearsed. All good comedians can spin gold out of life’s cruel realities, but Byron defies the rules of reality themselves. And it was his paranoid-schizophrenic father who unwittingly showed him the way.

Byron grew up an illegitimate child in conservative Georgia. After testing into a white school, he became the target of racism from his classmates and faced bullying from his own community, who considered him a traitor. At age twelve, Byron’s father threatened him at gunpoint and was institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia. Realizing that the only person he can depend on was himself, Byron vowed to do whatever he could to reshape his life and get the hell out of Georgia—including but not limited to: winning a basketball scholarship, selling crack at his Christian college, stealing cars, committing insurance fraud, and valeting at a sex club. He became a criminal several times over. He was shot and found himself on the verge of either suicide or homicide. He teetered on the brink of insanity. But unlike his father, he refused to let the delusions take control.

Determined to not let his arduous past stand in the way of success, Byran made it his life’s mission to become a comedian, slowly rising up the ranks in the Atlanta comedy scene before moving the West Coast where he became a regular performer at the hallowed Sunset Strip Comedy Store, won a strategic comedy competition, and even landed himself a few television credits. After years of struggle, Byron is finally where he has always dreamed of being: on the cusp of achieving success on his own terms.

Beyond the Promised Land dismisses the conventional wisdom that reality’s rules can’t be rewritten. Byron's is a story that educates, enlightens, and inspires anyone who refuses to let adversity stand in the way of not only their dreams, but of finding peace in the journey.