Steven Wright, Master of the One-Liner, Tries His Hand at a Novel – The New York Times

If theres one living stand-up legend whose jokes are perfect for Twitter, its Steven Wright. Not only are they concise (Lost a buttonhole) but so meticulously absurd (I like to reminisce with people I dont know) that rapid shifts of context dont distort their meaning.

So it was a surprise that when he started an account in 2011, he didnt use it to try out punch lines, but to write a novel very slowly. It almost sounds like a Steven Wright joke. But more than a decade later, this larky experiment has turned into a book, Harold, abouta meandering, bizarrely charming day in the life of a 7-year-old boy.

In an almost stream-of-consciousness style from the boys point of view, Harold, which takes place in the 1960s when Wright was a kid, pingpongs from musings on a third-grade teacher to a daydream about going to the moon. Plenty of its sentences would not be out of place in Wrights standup: All art is modern art at some point.

Sitting in the Manhattan office of Simon & Schuster last month, Wright, who has been telling jokes in front of audiences for more than 40 years, explained in his signature gravelly drone that stand-up provided him a very narrow window of creativity. Not a criticism, hes quick to add, just a description of the appeal of the new, more expansive form. I wanted to put a funnel on Harolds head and pour everything I think about being aliveinto it, he said. Lawyers, religion, space. Everything.

Asked why he would focus on a boy, Wright shrugged. But he believes children notice things thatadults miss. He sounds almost jealous when he describes the uncluttered mind of a young person. A kid, he said, is like an alien who just got off a spaceship and is looking around.

Wright can resemble an alien himself. He seems as laconic and lyrical as he is onstage, except warmer and quicker to laugh. Metaphors pour from him like a Bob Dylan song come to life. When asked to describe Wright, Marc Maron texted me: Poet. Happens. Rarely. In. Comedy.

Theres no more storied example of Johnny Carson making an overnight star than when his booker, visiting colleges for his son, stumbled upon an unknown Steven Wright performing in a Chinese restaurant in Boston. Wright killed on The Tonight Show in 1982, when the studio audience alone was his biggest crowd yet. Three years later, Wright released I Have a Pony, a classic of modern stand-up.

If you came to it young, as many did and still do, it could rejigger your entire sense of humor. The comic Anthony Jeselnik told me Wright influenced everything about my comedy. Bobcat Goldthwait called him human pot, explaining, Listen to him long enough and you feel stoned and see the world as absurd and amused as he does.

Wright described his background as resolutely ordinary: middle-class, all-American, Norman Rockwell stuff. Sensitive, a little quiet, he didnt tell his family that he had been doing comedy for years. Wright calls his break a fluke.

Dont be fooled by this fairy-tale story. Wright not only had a gift for old-fashioned joke construction but also a rare discipline and taste that he remained stubbornly faithful to. Take one example: Ive always hated puns, he told me with a rare flash of passion that he chuckled at. It would be funnier if you dropped a dish.

Early on, he set up rules for his comedy that might have hurt him in the short term but have allowed his work to age as well as any comedians. He avoided anything topical. He also did not curse. I didnt want to get a bigger laugh because of that, he said. I wanted it to be pure.

Wright usually waves away any grand intent behind his work, saying his deadpan style is just how he talks. His old friends back this up. But maintaining a singular view of the world requires effort.

After living on both coasts, he moved back to New England to a rural spot one town over from Walden Pond. You can see your life better, he said of living near nature. At one point, he likened city life to being constantly pelted with candy. You cant think because youre just trying to get through the Raisinets.

Wrights monotone one-liners remain a touchstone for a comedy subgenre, along with the other master of deadpan, Mitch Hedberg, who died in 2005.

The biggest difference between Mitch and Steven is that when you saw an hour of Mitch, you got an idea of who he voted for, what he was about, said Goldthwait, who, like Wright, emerged from the Boston comedy scene of the 1980s. You watch Steven for an hour and have more questions about him than before you saw him.

This is why Harold holds a particular fascination for comedy fans. What more can we learn about the elusive Wright?

Theres a romantic streak mostly absent from his comedy. The Apollo mission to the moon looms large in the story, and Wrights father, an engineer, worked for a company that helped build parts for NASA. Seeing a camera wrapped in plastic that was heading for space at his dads workplace fired his imagination and was at one point a scene in the book. That was cut, but the thrill of space travel remains.

There is also more talk of love. Sometimes lustful, other times weary. Being in love was like being on a seesaw where one side contained nitroglycerin, he writes. When you first get on no one knows which side has it.

When Harold talks about a beautiful, intense New York girlfriend in his future, this sounds like something from the authors life. Wright said that was true but kept it oblique in the book and was loath to discuss his personal life. He never married (Romance is gambling, he told me) and, asked why he didnt have kids, he sounds like a bystander to his own life. Didnt think about it, then it didnt happen, he said. It wasnt decided. It just happened.

The most revealing thing Harold captures about Steven Wright is the way he thinks about thinking. Described by the author as a wondering machine, the boy ponders whether its possible to be in your 70s and have the perspective of a 5-year-old without being nuts? Steven Wright is 67 and says he performs less these days.

The books central metaphor is a description of Harolds thought process as a room with one window and a riot of birds flying around. Occasionally one flies out. That represents an idea. Its a view of creativity that is random and unpredictable. Isnt it a bit scary? What happens if the birds stop flying out?

Wright released relatively few specials in his career because, he said, I can only think of so much stuff. But he looked at ease with the idea that some things are out of our control. You can try to think of ideas, but your mind is running on its own. Or at least my mind, he said. Its mostly chaos, but youre organizing a lot of it.

Then he paused to smile and toss out one last metaphor: You have to stay on the road when you drive.

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Steven Wright, Master of the One-Liner, Tries His Hand at a Novel - The New York Times