Jack Handey would like you to know he’s a real person, said Hamilton Nolan in Gawker.com. During his years writing for Saturday Night Live, the comedy writer inspired awe among his peers for his ability to come up with surreal, uproariously funny one-liners. Yet his most famous sketch, “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey,” fooled some SNL watchers into thinking that “Jack Handey,” the sensitive soul who offered ill-conceived advice, was entirely fictional. “It actually is a made-up name—it was made up by my parents,” says Handey, 64. He finds fans’ confusion both amusing and frustrating. “You finally get your tiny slice of fame, and then people think it’s a made-up name,” he says. “I wish my creditors thought it was.”
Handey has been thinking even deeper thoughts lately, said Steve Marsh in New York magazine. His debut novel, The Stench of Honolulu, follows his fictional alter-ego on a treasure hunt in the Hawaiian Islands. “I think it was because Hawaii is like paradise and so perfect,” says Handey, “that I kinda wanted to see what kind of damage the ‘Deep Thoughts’ character could do if he was set loose over there.” The shift from writing jokes to a novel, he says, was challenging. “You have to spend time on the narrative arc that you would’ve kind of preferred just spending being funny,” he says. Even though he’s so focused on being funny, Handey finds the adulation that other humorists heap on him puzzling. “I’m sure there are writers out there who do what I do better than me. But they’d better keep their heads down until I die.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Antony Gormley's Time Horizon – a 'judgmental army' of 100 cast-iron menThe Week Recommends Sculptures are 'everymen questioning the privilege of their surroundings' at the Norfolk stately home
-
'King's horses take free rein through London'Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
-
Is pop music now too reliant on gossip?Talking Point Taylor Swift's new album has prompted a flurry of speculation over who she is referring to in her songs
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”