PHOTOS USED WITH THE PERMISSION OF TOBY HUSS Actor and Marshalltown native Toby Huss recently released the photobook “American Sugargristle,” which features several scenes from his hometown including a tarped house badly damaged by the 2018 tornado and the multicolored chairs at Elmwood Country Club.

Toby Huss has developed a penchant for taking the long way and finding beauty in the mundane, and the veteran actor, Class of 1983 Marshalltown High School graduate and former T-R delivery boy turned his passion for photography into one of the more unconventional collections published in recent memory, “American Sugargristle.”

During an interview on Friday, Huss, who is based in Los Angeles, traced his interest back to an assignment he enjoyed in high school with a Kodak Instamatic camera, and the idea for a book arose from his frequent travels around the country for various acting roles — instead of flying to filming locations like Atlanta, he always preferred driving and spending the money on gas and hotels. The scenes he captured, however, probably won’t end up on a postcard anytime soon: abandoned buildings, strip malls, parking lots and shotgun shacks abound throughout “American Sugargristle.”

“I ended up driving all over the country a lot (in) the last 20 years. I don’t remember how many times, a lot, but all over the North, South, East, and West. I started seeing this really intricate, intimate aesthetic language, and that was similar to so many towns across America. And it was, like you said, it was off the beaten path kind of areas, and it went against the prevailing narrative that the left was way over here, and the right was on the other side, and the country was getting ripped apart by these two fighting factions,” he said. “And I saw so much similarity and so much humanity and care in the middle of the country and on the edges of the country too, all over, but I had to look for it. I had to find, and I started to see these signs, so the photobook came out of finding these signs and then realizing that there were all these stories that I thought were imprinted there. Every time I’d take one of these photos, sometimes they’d make me chuckle, and sometimes they’d make you a little heartsick, you know, or a little sad when you saw them or there was pathos, and there always seemed to be a story in there.”

Some of the captions that accompany each photo contain autobiographical elements, while others are completely fictional. One he particularly enjoyed was a gas pump covered in phallic graffiti and an imagined conversation between the “dummies” who tagged it, not unlike a younger Huss might have back in the 1970s in Marshalltown.

“Just a couple of goofballs hanging out and talking about it made me laugh, and I realized there was that sort of stuff going on all over the country as well as these real sort of forgotten, intimate portraits that were happening with landscape and architecture and the intersectionality of man’s influence on the environment and his influence on his influence on the environment, sort of a meta idea there,” he said. “But I started to see that and then thought ‘Huh, I wonder if these could be a photobook?’ And then started to think (in) that direction and began to take photos toward that for the last couple, three years.”

The majority of the pictures that made the book were taken between 2017 and 2025, but a few date back to the early 2000s. Local readers will recognize three from the author/photographer’s hometown: one at the Marshalltown Speedway, another at a house badly damaged by the 2018 tornado and another featuring the famous multicolored chairs at Elmwood Country Club — which includes an anecdote still burned into Huss’s subconscious over 50 years later about a groundskeeper who killed a pregnant mouse with a lawnmower. A fourth photo from the book showcases an old car in nearby Conrad.

“I think the truth of the image and the truth of the emotional quality has to come first, and then, you know, a slavishness to reality comes second. These are the stories, but the photos, you know, I have a rule when I go out and photo. I can’t move anything or can’t displace anything when I take the photos, so if there’s a lot of power lines in front of something. I don’t photoshop those out. If I use it later, I have to frame it in a way to get through the power line, but I don’t like it. If there’s a piece of garbage or some wood leaning up against the sign, I can’t remove the wood. This is something I don’t do. I don’t disturb the area where I take photographs.”

When it came to shooting here, Huss said he was never looking for anything specific, but the photo of the tarped house did arise from a trip back shortly after the tornado as he and a longtime friend, Tony Trout, assisted in the relief efforts. He was back in Marshalltown again last week and noted that “something was off” from when he was a kid and previous decades when he’d returned — it was the number of trees destroyed by the natural disasters.

“Hopefully, there’s this big push to keep planting trees, and as they say, when’s the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago or today,” Huss said before offering to help the local chapter of Trees Forever. “They need to get that out there because everybody should be planting trees. They should be giving saplings away at every city council meeting and just lining up all the Boy Scouts and if there are paper boys anymore, lining them up. But sadly, there probably are not any paperboys.”

The first run of “American Sugargristle,” which is published through Hat & Beard Press, has sold out, but the company is currently raising funds to reprint it.

“It’s been really wonderful and gratifying. There’s no money in photobooks. All you try to do is not lose money, and I’m mildly successful at not losing money — but not really in the photobook situation. You know, all the gasoline that I’ve burned over the years taking these photos, but I love it,” Huss said.

He wanted it to be smaller than a coffee table book and usable either as a road trip or bathroom companion.

Huss stays busy acting with ‘King of the Hill’ revival, ‘Weapons,’ ‘Americana’ and more

Despite the success he’s enjoyed with his foray into the literary world thus far, Huss hasn’t quit his day job, and in fact, he’s been busier than ever recently with a host of roles in acclaimed films and the reboot of one of the most beloved animated television shows of all time.

In Zack Cregger’s mystery horror film “Weapons,” which has grossed over $170 million worldwide, he plays Captain Ed Locke, and in “Americana,” a crime thriller starring Sydney Sweeney and Paul Walter Hauser that has drawn comparisons to the Coen Brothers, he portrays Pendleton Duvall.

Huss praised “Americana” writer/director Tony Tost, who started his creative career as a poet in Arkansas, as “a real artist” with “a really specific vision,” and he also relished the opportunity to work with “Saturday Night Live” alum Tina Fey on the Netflix series “The Four Seasons,” an adaptation of the 1981 film featuring Fey, Steve Carell, Will Forte and Colman Domingo.

“That was super fun, and everybody in it was crazily talented and really fun to work with,” he said.

He described Cregger’s “Weapons” script as “dynamite” and said he plowed through it in one setting, contrasting it with another project he was offered that took him four or five sittings to finish and nearly put him to sleep.

“Me being in it notwithstanding, it’s a great picture, and it’s not just a horror movie. There’s a mystery element to it and there’s thriller. As far as a movie goes, it’s a great movie. You’ll have a lot of fun,” Huss said.

Although he’s on something of a hot streak at the moment, Huss isn’t slowing down anytime soon: he has taken over the voice role of Dale Gribble from the late Johnny Hardwick in the “King of the Hill” revival on Hulu, and he’s also set to play the father of the titular character in the upcoming “Chad Powers” series starring Glen Powell set to release in September.

During his recent trip to Marshalltown — he tries to make it back either every year or every other year around the time of the Iowa State Fair — Huss enjoyed local staples like Taylor’s Maid-Rite and Zeno’s Pizza, but he joked that he has a bone to pick with Ev’s Ice Cream.

“I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t have peppermint. You know, we miss the peppermint. It’s such a drag. The peppermint’s so good,” he said. “They need to start tying in peppermint with the State Fair, so they know the people coming back for the State Fair… Lemon is nice, but that peppermint they make there is dynamite. And I’ve missed it the last few years, so it’s bugging me.”

If they bring it back when he visits, Huss will be happy to shoot some advertisements for Ev’s.