A nice crossword puzzle, which took me 33 minutes of pretty casual solving. Then the meta took another ten minutes: nine minutes of staring and then the aha out of nowhere.

The puzzle is here and the answer checker above will have the one word version of the answer.  My solving log (with more meta dead ends than usual) is after the cut.

Log:

0:00:00

Reading instructions carefully…

0:00:30

Seems straightforward. Solving…

0:01:13

8D STPETER is my break in, after mentally listing tennis guys and not getting 9D

0:02:37

TONER, METS, POWERSET, OWING..

0:03:19

top left done, with INITIALPRINTRUN coming out

0:05:38

top right done, after i realized I couldn’t get out of the top, guessed EDGAR ALAN POE for 40A (don’t tink that’s the right ‘ALAN’ just a wild guess to get me going)

0:07:07

DIR, ROBOTS, ENO, NAB in bottom left. but it’s probably ONO so we get DONT going across.

0:08:36

Can’t get out of bottom left. .. answers not matching up with POE, removing. going bottom right, MITRE for 46D?

0:10:10

TENTOONE for 58A, because TEN is the only longish # that fits. FEM,FREDO,ESSEN, FARSI in that order.

0:10:53

DONTREADTHEREST for 51A? hmm, ok.

0:11:20

SE done with PRATTLE and PERIDOT coming out. 37A APPLICANT gets me into E.

0:13:45

got 29D EPOCH, but went back to bottom middle, got HIRAM, FTWO (corrected from ETWO. must read clues carefully), NHLERS, FELTIT, ANITA.

0:15:22

can’t get E (just for now, hopefully)… going to W, with no letters coming in.

0:16:25

SCREAMERS for 30A? I don’t love it, but I need something to work with. HELLENE for 7D?

0:16:53

22A LETMA, 18D ROMAS? ok. maybe.

0:17:19

26A looks like it starts PHINEAS, so we’ll try that. 26D PESCI, so ok so far.

0:17:57

if 22D is LIMP, TIESUP for 34A works.. and we might finish the W…

0:19:13

Done with W, ADRIEN for poet’s first name, looks like. (I hate those “[word] beginning” clues. I’m as bad at noticing them as I am hidden words in cryptic crossword clues)

0:20:03

Third crack at E. Getting everything else didn’t really help. hmmm. ELIM APPLICANT EPOCH is all I have.

0:28:08

Poet’s name more likely ADRIENNE, right? so RICH for last name? … maybe that guess will help.

0:28:43

35A is such a vague clue. could mean half of a married couple, or have of a more general “wedded” pair of things, or a specific person in a famous married couple… gah. nothing comes to mind.

0:29:54

aha, ELOPER fits the E from ELIM and O from EPOCH. 28D now looks like RELIC.

0:30:59

24D OVERT? the adjective form of “put forth” I guess? I don’t love it. hmmm

0:31:57

I put in ALERT for 24D, then ALA for 23A then ADOPA for 23D, which came from I don’t know where, because the drug is LDOPA. putting LAE into 23A (but it could be LOG, I guess).

0:33:05

aha, AUDEN (should have gotten that earlier), then EPODE which seems like a thing, and EXERT to make PHINEAS REDUX. Finally done with xword.

0:33:33

INITIAL PRINT RUN, PHINEAS REDUX, ADRIENNE RICH, DONT READ THE REST. I guess are the “theme” answers? and the title is HA-HA-HA-HA… and we want a literary character. let’s look for something interesting…

0:35:23

Lots of literary clues. going to circle those answers. (and maybe ones like “put on the books, not sure)

0:37:06

4 theme answers plus EPODE, ENACT, FARSI, and ROBOTS going across. now down…

0:38:26

SPINES FAR LIMP? that’s all… ignoring FREDO and the Ovid clue, I guess.

0:39:37

Let’s say we start at INITIAL PRINT RUN, and stop at DONT READ THE REST? we get L,A,P(R),E,E,A(R),F… don’t love it.

0:40:52

the 2 middle themes give (P,R),(A,R) which looks like the start of PRARIE… but I don’t see how it could continue. Now, what about the title HA-HA-HA-HA… do we need intials from 4 things?

0:41:38

The 4 themes give IPAD… definitely not the answer. surely a coincidence. hmmm

0:42:19

Hmm, REDUX and REST… aren’t those RABBIT books? googling to make sure all four are.

0:43:20

Yep, those are the 4, in order. I guess that’s it. answer HARRY “RABBIT” ANGSTROM. Initials HA, which is nice.