Interview - Barry Maher

Barry Maher may be the only horror novelist who’s ever appeared in the pages of Funeral Service Insider. In his misspent youth, his articles were featured in perhaps a hundred different publications, and, in order to eat, he held nearly that many different jobs. Sometimes he lived on the beach. Not in a house on the beach. On the beach. With the sand and the seagulls.

After a sentence with a Fortune 100 company, he started speaking professionally. He told stories to audiences across the country and around the world: his client list was a Who’s Who of multi-national corporations and large associations. You may have seen Barry on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CBS, or CNBC, or read his Slightly Off-Kilter syndicated newspaper column.

On the downside, he’s actually been incarcerated twice. Once for not making a left-hand turn out of a left-hand turn lane, and once for aiding and abetting a loiterer. He’s deeply repentant.

A while back, Barry lost the ability to tell time, courtesy of a baseball-sized, cancerous brain tumor. He awoke from having his skull cut open without the tumor, but with the story of The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.

Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?

Barry Maher: As far as films go, I can remember one of the very first films I ever saw was a horror film. I have no idea of the title, and I was probably so young I shouldn’t have been there. All I can remember is a pair of terrifying eyes. They spoke to me so badly that I can still see them today.

After that, I got into the classic Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman films from the thirties and forties. Everyone I knew watched them and loved them.

Me: Who were some of your favorite writers growing up? Do you try to take influences from their style with your own voice in your work?

BM: I read everything. My favorites were the true-life adventurer stories of Richard Halliburton and the short stories of Saki (H.H. Monroe). When I Googled Saki to try to remember a specific title (I couldn’t), the first listing mentioned his “witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories.” That describes them really well. It also describes what I’m trying to do in The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.

Me: What was the starting point of becoming a writer? Were you always into writing growing up?

BM: I always thought I might write someday. Probably because I loved reading. But through high school, I never wrote anything except what was required for my classes. In college, I was an English major. English majors write.

After college, I became an award-winning poet. The award was five copies of a xeroxed "literary" magazine and was considered somewhat less prestigious than the Nobel Prize. I also committed to journalism. Of sorts. Writing for any publication that would have me.

Then three hours into a truly excremental job—standing on a roof in the rain, holding the frayed cord of a toilet de-rooter—I realized that what I really wanted to do was write a best-selling, critically-acclaimed novel. Think Harry Potter meets Hamlet, if Ophelia were oversexed, homicidal and undead.

Turns out reading novels—or in the case of Moby Dick and Ulysses, claiming to have read them—is a bit different than writing one. My first novel took two years. Then, with no track record, I couldn’t get a single agent to read it. Apparently, a degree in literature means nothing to literary agents. Nobody even asked about my grade point average. (Actually, nobody anywhere has ever asked about my grade point average.) So I turned to nonfiction books and got to eat. Which is a nice combination. Those books led to my speaking career. Nowadays, I write full-time, working on a second supernatural thriller and writing the weekly syndicated Slightly Off-Kilter columns.

Me: Is there any specific genre you prefer to write? Is there a style or format that you find easier to get into, even if you don't have a preference?

BM: I love suspense. I love horror. I love humor. Putting all those together in an accessible, conversational style seems natural to me. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy. I had an agent who said I was a natural storyteller. I think he was greatly disappointed when I told him that what he’d just read was at least the seventh draft.

Me: That brings us to your latest project, "The Great Dick." What can you tell us about the book?

BM: I owe The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon to Brain cancer.

Speaking on an Asian cruise, I realized I could no longer figure out what the hands of the clock meant. Back home, I went to the doctor. He immediately took away my driver’s license and sent me for an MRI. The nurse there wouldn’t comment on the result, but when I asked to use the restroom, she said, “I can’t let you go in there alone. You need to talk to your neurosurgeon.”

All I wanted to do was tell time. I could have just bought a digital watch. But suddenly I had a neurosurgeon. Who explained that I had a cancerous brain tumor the size of a basketball. Or maybe he said “baseball.” I wasn’t tracking too well just then. What I did understand was that he wanted to slice my skull open with a power saw. I came out of surgery without the tumor and with a story that felt like a memory, one I couldn't shake. That story was The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon. Weird.

As for the story, it’s 1982. The character’s name, Steve Witowski, is an alias. Once, he was a counterculture hero. Now he’s a failed songwriter, running from the law. And he’s just become a killer, rescuing a woman from a horrific assault by what seemed to be the strongest wino in California. Steve should keep moving. But the woman, Victoria, is beyond stunning. Oddly, she’s recently bought a decrepit old church with a notorious past. Will Steve stay and help? Of course. Even as the face of the man he just killed materializes on his arm. And Victoria becomes just a part of a mystery he can’t unravel. Until he’s looting the decomposing dead for the secrets of a self-proclaimed sorcerer. And the mystery becomes a nightmare of fire, blood, and death. The Sorcerer’s spells and rituals couldn’t actually work, of course. Until they do. And unknown to Steve, a demon is growing desperate.

You may want to know about the title. Visions or dreams of whatever it was don’t have titles. The title came to me while I was writing the short forward. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: Just before disappearing, a character on LSD mentions that The Great Gatsby, a story about a tragic love, and Moby Dick, a story about a monster whale, are basically the same story.

That may not seem obvious. Daisy Buchanan and Moby Dick don’t seem to exactly swim in the same ocean.

But the character says, “Both books are about trying to recover from a life-changing failure. The stories are just worked out differently to fit different eras. The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick—maybe if someone writes that story today, they should call it The Great Dick.”

Of course, it could have been Moby Gatsby. And to understand the subtitle, you’ll have to read the book.

Me: How did you approach the story with this one? Was there anything while writing the characters that you were surprised by in telling the story?

BM: As I mentioned, when I woke from surgery, the story was there along with a Lady Gaga song, which was playing nonstop in my head. Fortunately, after a day or two, Lady Gaga disappeared. But the story was so memorable that I couldn’t shake it. And eventually, I spent a couple of years recreating it and developing it.

My characters always surprise me. They never behave as I expect. One of the biggest surprises was Maria. I put her under pressure and she became a diamond. O’Ryan, her uncle, was also a major surprise. He stole every scene he was in. In some ways, he stole the book. That's not at all what I thought he was there for.

Me: Was there any special significance to making the action set in the '80s? By mixing together different genres in that period, were there any concessions to the story that emerged while writing it?

BM: When I first experienced the story, I realized it had happened in the early eighties just because of the nature of what was happening to the protagonist. 1982 was the year I had in my head. And that date is key to the story. That’s when the last remnants of the sixties counterculture were running up against the start of the Reagan Revolution, which was basically the antithesis of what was happening in the sixties. The protagonist is a refugee from the sixties. The woman he’s pursuing is nowadays a creature of the eighties.

Not long ago, quite a while after I’d finished The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon, I was looking through some old files on my computer. Files that had been passed down from computer to computer to computer. I found one that I couldn’t open. It would have been from my old Kaypro II computer. It was titled Zandie’s Grave, something the characters in The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon are seeking. The date on the file was 1982.

My guess is that the file held the germ of the story, which forty years later would show up while I was having my brain hacked at.

Me: Was there any part of your real self injected into the characters?

BM: The character who calls himself Steve Witowski, the anti-hero of the book, starts out by admitting he’s an asshole. Then he quickly proves it. So yes, there’s a bit of me in the character. I just do my best not to reach his level. But Barry Maher's First Theory of Assholes says that genuine, one hundred percent, certifiable assholes never see themselves as assholes. So I hope I’m not worse than I think I am. I do relate much more strongly to the way Steve is at the end of the book.

But I think that all an author’s characters—good, bad, or otherwise—contain some part of the author.

Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process for having it published?

BM: I wrote the book, fully intending to self-publish. My experience with traditional publishers is that they leave the vast majority of the marketing to the writer. So I figured, if I was going to be the one selling the book, I should get the bulk of the revenue.

Then I realized that self-publishing involved mastering a whole new business.

So, I had an associate research independent publishers, looking for one who might be right for the book. He submitted the book to five that we judged to be the best. Crystal Lake Publishing was our top choice. They responded first. Joe and I exchanged emails, and I withdrew The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon from consideration elsewhere.

So far, I’m extremely impressed by Crystal Lake. From an author’s point of view, they’re far easier to deal with and light years more responsive than the companies, like Random House and McGraw-Hill, that have published my nonfiction.

Me: What are you most looking forward to with its upcoming release?

BM: I always look forward to getting the actual physical book. I don’t think I’d seen the cover in advance for any of my other books. So this time, it will be less of a surprise. But I’m happy to give up that surprise for the input that Crystal Lake gave me. Even better, after I’d approved a perfectly acceptable cover, Joe Mynhardt, the publisher, decided it wasn’t good enough and commissioned another, far superior version. You don’t get that from Random House. At least, I didn’t.

Me: What do you do to keep your creative energy flowing?

BM: I sit down and write. If my creative energy isn’t flowing—and that certainly happens—writing starts it. Worst case scenario, I may write a couple of paragraphs, maybe even a couple of pages I later toss. But if it gets the juices flowing, it’s worth it. I

I’m not a believer in waiting for inspiration. Writers write. I get up in the morning, I eat breakfast, then I sit down and write.

Me: Lastly, what else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers? Thank you again for your time!

BM: It’s been fun. I’m working on more suspense horror. My cancer’s in remission, so I’m having to develop this one without the benefit of a brain tumor.