‘Huge: A Novel‘
By Brent Butt
Doubleday Canada, 304 pages

“Comedy,” the old saying goes, “equals tragedy plus time.” Veteran comedian Brent Butt — his real name — combines both in a single road trip. His debut novel, “Huge,” weaves a taut, psychological thriller. It’s the rare book that kept me turning pages, defying all the distractions of modern life.

Mr. Butt is as beloved in Canada for his sitcom, “Corner Gas,” as Jerry Seinfeld is for his titular program in America. Some fans may want to lock them in a lane labeled “Just Comedy,” but the joke’s on them if they deny themselves this twisted look at stand-up’s dark side.

In our History Author Show interview, Mr. Butt, 57, recounted that he drew on his early experiences of being thrown together with a stranger on the road. Sometimes, driving alone on a desolate road, he’d find his companion’s comments unsettling, and contemplate just how many places rural Saskatchewan offered to bury his corpse.

“People tend to,” Mr. Butt told me, “pretty naturally look at comedy and horror as being very polar opposite things, but they really are — in the classic sense of the word — two sides of the same coin.”

Mr. Butt describes the two fields of entertainment as “not so distant cousins,” both “twisted reactions to an unexpected event.” One seeks to make people laugh and the other to make them afraid. Both require timing, attention to detail, and a love of language. All are on display in “Huge.”

“Huge” debuted on Canada’s national best-seller list in part due to Mr. Butt’s name recognition as an award-winning screenwriter and International Emmy nominee, but word of mouth earned it a second printing and a contract for distribution in America where few have enjoyed “Corner Gas.”

Readers meet three vivid characters in “Huge” and get to know them as they develop a rapport between comedy sets. Our heroes are Dale Webly, a middle-aged Chicago comedy veteran who never hit it big, and Rynn Lanigan, an up-and-comer from Ireland on the verge of her big break in Hollywood seeking to hone her skills in the Great White North.

The interplay between Dale and Rynn rings true in ways that only someone who lived it could write. They feel each other out at first, joking and sharing observations without preening or pretense, offering a stage to develop their characters into real people.

Dale and Rynn carve out a working relationship as they tour small-town joints on their way to Winnipeg, Manitoba’s capital. Dale is happy to mentor Rynn and she is receptive to his wisdom, advice, and experience. It’s a study both in passing on knowledge and accepting it when offered.

The third member of their group, Hobie Huge — not his given name — is an amateur who, like a melted Lego, fails to fit with the other two. Frustrated that he can’t snap into place, he’s brittle and prone to outbursts of rage.

Readers find themselves recoiling in fear with Dale and Rynn, seeing that the hulking Hobie isn’t content to kill in the figurative sense with jokes. This creeping realization will have readers wanting to shout warnings at characters on the printed page. That may be a cliché about audiences in horror movies, but “Huge” evokes the fear behind the irrepressible impulse.

The way pursuing fame twists an unbalanced mind like Hobie’s is well-trodden ground, but “Huge” offers such a fresh perspective that it reads brand new. Absent are the freshman author’s mistakes of indulging in long descriptions, exposition dumps, and clunky dialogue, building an almost painful foreboding that what’s unseen is often imagined to be the greatest threat.

“Huge” reminded me of an observation by another comedic actor, Steve Martin. Years into his career, he wondered what would happen if instead of building tension and releasing it with a punchline, he never gave the audience that relief, holding them on the edge of their seats.

After writing “Huge” and with his second thriller underway, Mr. Butt has swerved out of the lane fashioned for him by the public. Expect the day to come some future Halloween when readers are surprised to discover that the novelist keeping them up at night in fear started on the other side of the coin as a comic.