Penn Jillette’s newest book, Random, chronicles the adventures of 21-year-old Bobby Ingersol, a Las Vegas local who lives life by roll of the dice. Ahead of his upcoming performances with Michael Carbonaro at Rio, Las Vegas Magazine caught up with Jillette to chat about the novel.

Were any of the choices for this book random?

I rolled the dice for the numbers and then reverse-engineered it. I find getting one good idea difficult. Having a bunch of them and (choosing one,) I’m afraid that one of them will always have been much better in that situation. One of the reasons I’m so enthralled by the character in that book is because he’s so different from me. I’m an incredible (stickler) … I’m so not spontaneous, so the idea of random appeals to me.

How do you balance telling The story of a young, impulsive protagonist being told by a more well-reasoned narrator?

I seem to not have a choice. No matter how much I try to write as another character, it always seems like me. I didn’t struggle to find my voice as an author, I just don’t have any other … Somebody my age has so many responsibilities that living a dice life would make the character, I think, less sympathetic, but having the character be young and not have responsibilities, I can allow him to do one very big charitable act … and once I’ve done that, I believe the audience can then say, “He’s OK.” It’s really important to me that the protagonist be likable and within my morality. I know that’s unfashionable … But I get so sick of rooting for people that are not good people.

The bell curve of dice outcomes provides a bit of structure to the book as you repeat it frequently. Why place so much emphasis on mathematics?

Because it’s so deep to the idea. Marvin Minsky at MIT wrote a book called The Society of Mind, and he talks about how there’s a voting system inside our heads where we decide what we want to do the most. And I’m fascinated by the idea of right before you make that decision, laying out the percentages of how much you want to do (each option) … So, I’m trying to drill into my own head how that bell curve constantly plays out and how that metaphorically that 2 and 12 (the two numbers with the least likelihood of being rolled) are always lingering there as real parts of us that never get expressed.

So the dice roll allows the opportunity to do something new?

Right, it’s the power of the loser … The idea that second, third and fourth place in intellectual ideas can be (interesting but never chosen). A fascinating example is the two founders of Google. (Google creators Sergey Brin and Larry Page disagreed on whether the site should have ads or not. The discord ended in favor of displaying ads.) But the loser had so much influence and was so repulsed by the idea of ads that the tasteful ads of Google… were the compromise the loser forced. What made Google incredibly successful was the point of view of the loser. That story of how important the losers are in decision making runs all through the book.

The book’s villain, Fraser Ruphart makes a point that his last name is to be said “Rup-hart,” not “Ru-fart.” But in the audio book you continue to say “Ru-fart.”

I know, because I don’t respect the villain.

Does he represent something in the tangible world?

Bobby is who I’d like to be. Ruphart is who I’m afraid I am or who I could become. Not the morality, but the style. Totally controlled and knowing who’s wrong in every situation … The idea of driving by a traffic accident and knowing who made the mistake saddens me so much. Because it takes the moral complexity out of it. I don’t mean moral relativism, I mean moral complexity as being very distinct. I think (losing that is) a really bad thing, which is why I wanted my villain to have a real sense of right and wrong. I thought a lot about a hero that is completely moral yet doesn’t know what’s going on, and a villain who is amoral and immoral and knows exactly what's going on. I found that really interesting.

Despite this book being a work of fiction, there are a lot of allusions to real-life people throughout the book. Why?

I can talk about real things that happened to me. I’ve only written two novels, the rest are either magic books or essays, and in the essays very often I’m fighting to present the truth while sticking to the facts, which is very difficult. And in fiction, you get to focus on the truth without having to worry at all about the facts. I’m able to write more about my relationship with Johnny Thompson and with Piff and, frankly, the other people there who are disguised partners (and friends.) I want to write about those things that I would be too embarrassed or not at liberty to write about. You put that in fiction and it becomes really, really fun. Also, I do like the fact that I appear in the book in two places as some (jerk) magician. I guess it’s a little bit immodest, but I do like the fact that Bobby Ingersol is living in a world where my picture is 300 feet on the side of a building. I like being able to try for a moment to see myself outside myself.

If readers take one thing away from your book, what do you want it to be?

I would say, everybody is living exactly Bobby’s life and the world is random. And in a random world, we’re all looking for kindness and love.

Rio, 866.746.7671

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