[Note: I’m starting a new semi-regular feature here on the blog. “Character Corner” is book reviews from the perspective of showing character, not plot. Here we go!]

Last night I finished reading Huge, the debut novel by James Fuerst. We’ll get to the character stuff in a minute, but let me gush about the book in generic book review terms for a minute:

I loved this book. I give it four, maybe four and a half stars. It was awesome. Funny. Poignant. Moving in places. Very well set in its time and place (New Jersey in the 1980s). Funny. Wait, did I just say that? I did. But it was. This book had me giggling from cover to cover, and busting out laughing at its high points. It was flat out hilarious, but not just in throwaway silliness. The humor was inherent in the truly amusing circumstances Fuerst put his characters in.

Ok. Enough of that. What I really loved, and what Fuerst absolutely nails in this novel better than a lot of successful career novelists I could name, is the characterization. It’s hard to discuss characterizaton in a meaningful way without also spoiling the plot, but I’m going to try because y’all really should read this book and it would be a crime if I went and spoiled it for you.

Huge

The main character is a pre-teen boy named Eugene Smalls. Everyone calls him “Genie,” but he has decided he’d rather be called “Huge” instead, despite his diminutive physical stature. Huge Smalls. Classic. Now, you’re going to think I wrote last Friday’s article on purpose, because Huge Smalls is such a perfect example of what I was talking about, but I didn’t. Sometimes things just work out like that.

What I mean is that Huge’s view of himself is wildly at odds with how others see him. This is pretty obvious from very early on in the book. So you know that at some point he’s going to have that moment of epiphany where he realizes this and has to deal with it. Fuerst handles it brilliantly; what I won’t reveal is which of the three strategies I explained in that last article Fuerst chose for dealing with it.

Huge also has a chip on his shoulder that’s so big I’m surprised it doesn’t crush him. I’m not a big fan of this, because generally it is just a sign of an overblown ego, but I was surprised to see what Fuerst did with it. Huge’s chip on his shoulder wasn’t so much about ego as it was about armor. Fuerst did a beautiful job of portraying that particular character flaw as a defense mechanism, which did wonders to help make Huge—a difficult kid to love—into more sympathetic character.

The Frog

As wonderful a character as Huge Smalls himself is, I have to tell you, I particularly liked the frog. Yes, the book has character who is a frog. No, the book is not a paranormal piece, it’s not magical realism, it’s not wizard fiction or anything like that. It’s straight-up real world stuff, but there’s a frog in it. Not only that, but the frog is actually an integral supporting cast member and a distinctive character in his own right. If that piques your interest—how can a writer turn a frog into real character without resorting to fantasy?—it should. Go read the book.

It would have been easy for Fuerst to simply make the frog be like any other person. We’ve all read talking animal stories at some point, so we’re all familiar with animal characters who, despite being four legged, nevertheless think and act pretty much like people do. My guess is that Fuerst could have gone that route and still managed to have the frog serve its necessary function in relation to the plot and Huge’s character arc.

I’m glad he didn’t, because that would have sucked compared to what he did do, which was to go deep into the mindset of a frog. The frog has froggy opinions and attitudes about the world and about Huge’s life. The frog’s perspective is completely different from Huge’s. Yet, once you understand that this frog is supposed to be an actual frog instead of a frog-shaped person, his perspective fits so exactly what you might imagine a real frog thinking and saying that the character becomes really believable.

It’s a tour-de-force of characterization. I’m tempted to make “good writers know how to think like a frog” into my new motto. The relationship between Huge and the frog is also intricate yet very well portrayed, but I can’t really tell you much more than that without getting into spoiler territory, so I won’t. Go read the book.

James Fuerst: a writer to watch

All in all Huge was a great read, and a very impressive showing for anybody, let alone a first-time novelist. I envy Fuerst’s ability to craft really funny scenes and yet blend them with a ‘huge’ amount of pathos. I’ll be waiting eagerly to see what he comes up with next.