A popular comedian known for deadpan delivery writes first novel

For a guy who usually looks so mournful, Steven Wright has been making a lot of people laugh for 40 years.

A standup comic, Wright has an almost patented delivery: Deadpan, almost dead, his pipe-cleaner limbs stiff and motionless, a deep voice coming through nearly monotone.

And with that voice, Wright crunches, and sometimes crushes, logic with one-line zingers.

"How come abbreviated is such a long word?"

"I bought a million lottery tickets. I won a dollar."

"How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink."

"I had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met."

Wight has occasionally strayed into acting ("Reservoir Dogs," "Natural Born Killers") and filmmaking. Now he's produced a first novel, "Harold." If you like his style, you'll love the book.

It is approximately 1969 -- the Apollo astronauts have taken the famous photo of the Earth from the Moon -- and Harold is a 7-year-old third grader in Ms. Yuka's third grade class at Wildwood Elementary, somewhere in Massachusetts.

The book follows Harold for one day in class, although Harold's mind tends to wander, taking him to the local cemetery and to his grandfather's house up in the Maine woods, or on a starship with Carl Sagan. Harold tortures Ms. Yuka with questions that have nothing to do with the lesson. For one thing, she's Asian American, and Harold asks, when she was back in China, did she ever try to dig all the way to the U.S.A.? (Answer: No.)

Still, she's tolerant and lets him do fingerpaints while wearing mittens. Harold has a crush on a classmate, Elizabeth, and does little about it, though he's always thinking up clever repartee. He also thinks a lot about the Lakota Indians, the astronauts and death. (His parents decided he's Catholic, the same way they decided his name was Harold, but he's not sure God exists. He's rather inordinately fond of his agnosticism.) And though he's rather ordinary on the outside, Harold has ideas constantly flying through his head. He likens them to being carried by birds, flying through the screen of his mind. (He grows very precisely about describing the birds' species and coloration.)

For instance, what if jet bombers dropped sweaters instead of bombs? Do birds think about being alive? Reading between the lines, it's not hard to see that everything's not great with Harold. His mother is in some kind of asylum (because she won't stop talking), and apparently, Harold's grandfather isn't with us anymore. But he carries on.

"Harold" isn't a classic. Besides Harold, none of the other characters really comes into focus; much of the text reads like notes for a Steven Wright stand-up gig. Ever at its least, however, it is very funny and often poignant.

Book review

Harold

By Steven Wright

Simon & Schuster, $26

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Steven Wright's first novel, 'Harold,' looks at childhood