Darkly comic Practical Jean wins Leacock Medal

Practical Jean, a darkly comic novel about a nurturing housewife who develops a murderous disposition, has won the 2011 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Trevor Cole was named winner of the $15,000 prize at a ceremony in Orillia, Ont. — Leacock's hometown — on Thursday.

His novel follows small-town housewife Jean Horemarsh who, after caring for her mother during the final throes of a prolonged cancer fight, decides that her friends and loved ones don't deserve the suffering that comes from illness and aging. So, she takes matters into her own hands in a shocking way.

Practical Jean is the Hamilton, Ont. author and magazine journalist's third novel, after Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life and The Fearsome Particles.

Cole triumphed over fellow nominees Todd Babiak (Tobya a Man), Red Green (How to do Everything), David Rakoff (Half Empty) and Terry Fallis (The High Road), who won the medal in 2008. The other finalists receive $1,500 each.

Awarded annually since 1947, the Leacock Medal was established by the Stephen Leacock Association to celebrate Canadian humour writing and honour the memory of the Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town author.

Cole joins past winners such as Mordecai Richler, Pierre Berton and Will Ferguson.