For most stand-up comedians, a dead audience is the stuff of nightmares. For Eric Potts, it’s the premise of his first novel.
Potts has spent much of his life making people laugh, first as a police officer with a sense of humor and later as a professional comedian. Now he’s turning his attention to horror, with a story about a struggling comic who makes a deal with a demon and finds himself performing for an audience that is quite literally dead.
Potts’ debut novel, “Killer Set,” is scheduled for release on Saturday, Oct. 31, an appropriate Halloween debut for a book that combines supernatural horror with the unpredictable world of stand-up comedy.
Longtime Plainsboro residents may remember Potts from his 25 years with the Plainsboro Police Department, where he worked as a police officer and detective before retiring in 2011. Since then, the Ewing resident has traded investigating crimes for entertaining audiences, building a second career as a stand-up comedian and radio personality.
Now, with the publication of his first novel, Potts is adding another occupation to a resume that includes military service, law enforcement, broadcasting and comedy clubs across the country.
In “Killer Set,” the central character, Johnny, is a struggling comedian whose career has failed to live up to his ambitions. Desperate for the big break that has eluded him, he encounters a mysterious figure named Butch, who offers him what appears to be the opportunity of a lifetime.
Johnny accepts the offer, making a bargain with a demon that promises to give him the audience and success he has been seeking. But the opportunity comes with conditions he could never have imagined.
His new comedy club, appropriately named The Wake, is located in the basement of his mother’s house. And unlike the patrons at an ordinary comedy club, the audience members are already dead.
Only Johnny can see the people in the audience, and they can see him. What initially seems like a chance to rescue his career becomes a supernatural predicament in which the consequences of failure extend well beyond bombing onstage. The story follows Johnny as he confronts the consequences of his bargain and discovers that getting what he wished for may be considerably worse than remaining an unsuccessful comedian.
The novel blends dark humor with supernatural suspense, exploring ambition, desperation and the price of success. Its tagline, “Even the dead have to laugh,” captures the combination of comedy and horror that Potts has brought together in his latest creative undertaking.
The premise also draws on an anxiety familiar to anyone who has performed stand-up comedy. A comedian can spend hours developing material, rehearsing jokes and working out the timing of a routine, only to step onto a stage and discover that the audience isn’t interested. In Johnny’s case, however, the stakes are considerably higher than a bruised ego.
Potts knows something about the uncertainty of performing before strangers, although his own path to the comedy stage was hardly conventional.
His journey began in Jackson Township, where he grew up the youngest of three children. His father was a police chief in Manalapan, and Potts would eventually follow him into law enforcement. But even as a youngster, he had an interest in performing.
He appeared in school plays, entertained his friends and developed a reputation as a jokester. He remembers listening to Richard Pryor records with his brother, although their father did not approve of the comedian’s language. Steve Martin was another early influence.
Potts recalled being drawn to the attention that came with making people laugh in past interviews with Community News Service publications. His parents separated when he was 8, and as the youngest child, he often found himself competing with his older siblings to be noticed.
“I guess I was an attention seeker,” he said. “My parents got separated early on when I was eight, and between my brother, sister, and me, I always tried to get attention.”
He once dreamed of becoming a stuntman, riding his bicycle over obstacles in an effort to impress his friends. Comedy, however, was not something he initially considered as a profession.
After graduating from Jackson High School, Potts spent six years in the Army, serving as a military police officer in Germany and Virginia during the 1980s. He subsequently joined the Plainsboro Police Department, where he spent 25 years as a police officer and detective before retiring in 2011.
Getting hired was no small accomplishment. Potts recalled that approximately 1,000 applicants took the department’s entrance examination when he applied, and only three were selected.
Over the years, Potts encountered traumatic situations and witnessed the emotional strain police work could place on officers. He eventually became a police suicide counselor and trainer, a role he held for 12 years.
Potts spoke openly about his struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts during his law enforcement career. He also discussed the reluctance of some officers to seek help, particularly in a profession where acknowledging emotional difficulties could be perceived as weakness.
“Police officers are trained to help everyone else, but if you’re a cop and ask for help you’re perceived as weak, so cops don’t do it,” he said.
Potts believed the demands of the profession could leave lasting emotional scars, especially when officers encountered traumatic situations repeatedly over the course of their careers. His counseling work gave him an opportunity to help others confront difficulties he understood firsthand.
He also came to recognize that a career he had pursued partly because of his father’s influence was not necessarily the life he wanted for himself. His relationship with his father would become the subject of some of his most personal writing.
In an essay titled “My Journey,” published on his website in 2018, Potts recalled traveling to West Virginia to scatter some of his father’s ashes seven years after his death. His father was a Vietnam War veteran whose remains had been interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Potts and his sister had previously scattered portions of his ashes at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
Potts wanted to return another portion to West Virginia, where his father had grown up and which he remembered fondly. He had promised to make the trip, although it took him years to fulfill that promise.
The journey became an occasion to reflect on a relationship that had not always been easy. Potts wrote that he loved his father deeply but had spent years trying to become like him, eventually recognizing that following in his footsteps had not always been the right choice.
Their strongest connection, he explained, had often come through their shared experiences in law enforcement rather than through the ordinary relationship between a father and son.
Potts expected the trip to produce powerful emotions and perhaps even a few funny stories he could turn into a comedy routine. Instead, he found himself unexpectedly at peace.
He wrote about the quiet of the West Virginia countryside, the sound of birds and the cool breeze as he scattered his father’s ashes. He had hoped to feel his father’s presence but instead found himself appreciating the simplicity of the moment.
“I found that I didn’t need closure after all, I needed opening,” he concluded.
The essay reveals a more reflective side of Potts, one that would become increasingly apparent in his writing about family, memory and the choices people make. For much of his adult life, he had remained in a profession that offered stability but did not always bring personal satisfaction.
In another essay, “Never Wish,” written as a letter to his three children, Potts acknowledged spending years putting aside his own ambitions. He explained that although his law enforcement career provided financial security for his family, he had struggled with feeling unfulfilled.
“Never Wish” began as an attempt to write a comedy routine about parenting. Instead, Potts found himself offering his children advice drawn from his own experiences. He encouraged them to pursue their interests, travel, take chances and avoid allowing fear or the expectations of others to determine their futures. “I did a lot of wishing and I regret it,” he wrote.
It was advice Potts had already begun putting into practice. His entry into stand-up comedy came almost by accident. While contemplating what he wanted to do after his police career, he read a newspaper article about a comedy school associated with Catch a Rising Star.
He decided to enroll, initially thinking it would be something enjoyable to try. Once he stepped onstage, he discovered that he wanted to do more.
“I thought I’d take it for fun, and once I got on stage I found out how much I enjoyed doing it,” he said.
Although he was starting later than many aspiring comedians, Potts believed his years of experience gave him something younger performers might not have: a lifetime of material.
The adjustment was not as simple as telling jokes to friends.
“My whole life I was told I was funny,” he recalled. “I was a jokester in high school. I went in the Army and people told me I was funny. You can be funny in front of your friends all you want, but when you step on the stage it’s completely different. It’s about getting your stories out there to the audience in a way they can relate to.”
He began developing routines about marriage, raising children, retirement, growing older and the everyday frustrations of family life. He found that experiences that seemed ordinary at home could become funny when told from the right perspective.
One of his jokes involved his children presenting him with a large, gift-wrapped box for his retirement. When he opened it, he discovered it was empty.
The children explained that they had bought him his retirement home.
Potts’ revenge came when he arrived home in a new Corvette. Asked where he had gotten the money, he explained that he had spent their college fund.
His humor was often self-deprecating and sarcastic, drawing on the kind of situations audiences could recognize from their own lives.
Potts began performing while still working in law enforcement, taking opportunities to develop his material in comedy clubs and at open-mic nights. He won the 2011 Sarcasm Comedy Competition and gradually built a schedule of performances throughout the region.
His appearances eventually took him to venues including Catch a Rising Star in Princeton, Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia, Stand Up NY, the Tropicana in Atlantic City and clubs in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana and Nevada.
He has shared bills with or opened for established comedians including Gilbert Gottfried, Caroline Rhea, Rich Vos, Bobby Collins, Jackie Martling, Sam Morril and Jim Florentine.
Closer to home, Potts became a regular presence at Sarcasm Comedy Club in Hightstown, operated by comedian and radio personality Steve Trevelise, and served as an emcee at Catch a Rising Star.
He also became interested in helping other aspiring comedians develop their skills. In 2015, he was running a weekly Comedy Gym at the Ewing Elks Lodge in West Trenton, bringing together performers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to test new material and receive criticism from more experienced comics.
Potts considered comedy an art that required preparation, practice and a willingness to learn from other performers. But he also believed that audiences should never be able to tell how much work went into a routine.
Rather than memorize a rigid script, he organized his material into topics, allowing himself to adjust his performance depending on the audience and the reaction to individual jokes.
He came to appreciate the importance of storytelling, timing and the ability to connect with people who might have little in common with him. Despite his years in law enforcement, Potts generally avoided making police work the central subject of his comedy.
“In the beginning of my set I may talk about it. But I don’t dwell on it,” he explained. “I write about my life in general. There’s a lot of inside stuff that cops would understand, but not the general public.”
He found that the most effective comedy often came from situations that audiences could relate to, whether the frustrations of family life, the challenges of getting older or the small absurdities of everyday experiences.
But he also recognized a connection between the darker experiences of his police career and the relief he found performing comedy.
“Being onstage is a form of psychotherapy,” he said.
The comedy stage offered a new identity outside law enforcement, along with the opportunity to make people laugh rather than confront them under difficult circumstances.
His interest in entertaining audiences extended beyond stand-up.
Over the years, Potts worked in broadcasting, recording commercials, performing voiceovers and spending time as an overnight disc jockey on 94.3 FM. His professional biography also lists work with New Jersey 101.5.
He hosted trivia competitions at area bars and collaborated with other comedians on a podcast called “Whipped Cream and Other Delights.”
Writing became another outlet for his creativity.
Potts’ personal website contains essays covering everything from family relationships and childhood misadventures to traffic complaints, police work and travel. Some resemble extended stand-up routines, with humorous observations and unexpected endings. Others are more reflective, revealing an interest in memory, regret and the complicated relationships that shape people’s lives.
In “The Luck of the Stupid,” Potts recalled a childhood incident in which a contact lens blew off his finger and into a stream. Terrified of his father’s reaction, he searched desperately until he recovered it.
Another essay, “Route 66,” takes a different approach, describing a journey across the country and the abandoned buildings and roadside attractions that prompted him to imagine the people who once passed through them.
But one piece of personal writing stands out in light of his new horror novel.
In “A Friend in the Window,” Potts recounts what he describes as an encounter with the ghost of an elderly neighbor named Jimmy, a World War II veteran who lived across the street from his Ewing home.
The two men had become friends through their shared military backgrounds and Potts’ career as a police officer. They spent many afternoons on Jimmy’s backyard patio, drinking beer while the older man recounted his experiences during World War II.
Jimmy sometimes told the same stories repeatedly, but Potts enjoyed listening. The older man was proud of his military service, and Potts appreciated both the stories and the friendship.
After Jimmy died, Potts and his family continued helping maintain the property. Jimmy’s widow eventually moved out, leaving the house empty, but Potts and his children kept the lawn mowed and cleared the walkways during the winter.
One day, while mowing the overgrown backyard, Potts stopped on the patio where he and Jimmy had spent so many afternoons together. He remembered their conversations and the friendship they had shared.
Then, according to his account, he felt as though someone was watching him Looking toward the house, Potts said he saw Jimmy standing in a window, smiling. He described watching the figure for several seconds before it faded into the curtain. At first, the experience left him unsettled, but the feeling soon gave way to comfort.
He interpreted the encounter as a sign that his old friend remained connected to the home where he had raised his family and spent much of his life. “I wish I could walk over there now and sit with him, sip a beer and listen to his stories again,” he wrote.
For Potts, the experience reinforced his belief that something might exist beyond the physical world, although he did not claim to understand exactly what that might be.
Whether that experience or other encounters with the unexplained influenced the creation of “Killer Set” is something Potts has not addressed in the material accompanying the book’s announcement.
Nevertheless, his interest in the supernatural clearly predates the novel, and his personal writing demonstrates a willingness to explore subjects far removed from the familiar territory of stand-up comedy.
His essays also reveal a recurring interest in ambition, regret and the consequences of the choices people make. Those ideas are central to “Killer Set.”
Johnny, the novel’s protagonist, desperately wants to succeed as a comedian. When Butch offers him an opportunity to achieve that ambition, he accepts the bargain without understanding what he will be required to give in return. The resulting predicament places a familiar human desire, the wish to achieve success, in a setting where the consequences are supernatural and potentially terrifying.
There is an interesting contrast between the fictional comedian who makes a deal with a demon to achieve his ambitions and Potts’ own reflections on the importance of pursuing goals rather than simply wishing for success.
In “Never Wish,” Potts encouraged his children to make the most of their opportunities and avoid the regrets that had accompanied some of his own career decisions. His message was that taking chances, even when the outcome is uncertain, is better than spending a lifetime wondering what might have happened.
For Potts, the decision to pursue comedy after a long career in law enforcement was one such chance. Publishing his first novel represents another. More than a decade after stepping onto a comedy club stage, he is once again finding a new audience, this time through the written word rather than a microphone.
For Potts, whose retirement from police work opened the door to a career he once never imagined, the novel represents another opportunity to entertain audiences.
This time, at least, he is hoping the readers are alive.
“Killer Set” will be released in paperback and hardcover editions, with preorders available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Readers can visit killer-set.com for additional information and a free bonus horror story, “The Woman Upstairs.”
