Charlie Demers's 'The Horrors' inspired by his mother

Sometimes, laughing is more fun than crying.

At least that's what stand-up comedian Charlie Demers has set out to remind readers in his newest book, a quasi memoir that explores "the awful stuff" in life through the frame of comedy.

The Horrors: An A to Z of Funny Thoughts on Awful Things is a collection of 26 essays, one for each letter of the alphabet. The first five chapters of the book begin with:

• A for Adolescence.
• B for Bombing (when standup comedy falls flat).
• C for Capitalism.
• D for Depression.
• E for End of the world.

Initially, Demers envisioned sectioning off the book with specific chapters devoted to the political and others to the personal. As with most things in life, things didn't go according to plan, he said. 

"C for Capitalism should be the biggest kind of world historical crane-shot type essay. Instead it ends up being a really personal story about my mom and what her hopes were for my life when I was born."

Inspired by mom

Demers's mother is central to the "sensibility" of the book, he said.

"My mother was the funniest person that anyone who knew her had ever met," Demers said. 

"She was also angry. She had lived an almost unrelentingly tragic life."

When she was just two years old, she witnessed her older brother die after a car struck him as the two of them were exiting their yard. She lost her father at the age of seven.

At 39, she succumbed to a five-year battle with leukemia after suffering from complications related to her treatment. 

"She resented those things. She resented how life had gone for her."

"In that way, I think I'm very much my mother's son. The book is really a kind of extension of that sensibility, of that idea that you go through life, and it's almost impossibly difficult."

"You're constantly scared, and you're constantly expecting that the worst is going to happen," Demers said.

"The best or maybe only way to deal with that is to approach life with a feeling of, 'What is there to be found that's funny? How can we connect to the people that we are with, through laughter?'"

Comedy as a healing agent

Comedy is much more than a numbing agent to the horrors of the world, Demers said.

"If you're having a tumour removed from your body, you will go under anaesthetic so that the doctor can get in and remove something that would otherwise be too painful to do."

"Whether or not [comedy is] an anaesthetic is the wrong question. The right question is, 'If it is an anaesthetic, is it being used as a healing tool?'" 

For his part, Demers said, he is "in the process of learning that life has gotten much better."

To hear the full interview with Charlie Demers, listen to the audio labelled: The Horrors: a book about "the awful stuff" in life, by Charlie Demers.