What
inspired you to become an author?
I always wanted to be
a novelist. But from the time I first mentioned it, people kept telling me
there was no money in it. I needed to find a way to make a living. So, I decided
to be a
professional baseball player and write in the off-season. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that good at baseball,
even before I discovered girls. Which took me from one field where I wasn’t
major league material to another.
At fifteen, my guidance counselor gave me
an aptitude test. It yielded a long, singularly unappealing list of careers,
including, I swear to God, forest ranger, lumberjack and rodeo clown. I thought
the test was ridiculous and, moronically, I mentioned that to my Guidance
counselor.
"So, what is it you really want to do?" she asked.
“Honestly?”
“Honestly,” she said.
Honestly, what I really wanted to do at 15 was to date Krissy Caperson.
Or failing that, almost anyone else. But I didn’t see my guidance counselor
helping with that. And mentioning it to her was probably another mistake.
I may the only person you’ll ever meet who actually flunked
guidance.
I got through high school and hustled my way through Notre
Dame — did you know you can sell blood plasma every week? I was an English major, which is basically the
definition of not having figured out the making a living thing. Then I hitchhiked
out to beautiful Santa Barbara. Where I could just barely afford to live on the
beach. Not in a house on the beach. On the beach. With the sand and the
seagulls.
Standing on a roof in the rain,
holding the frayed cord of a toilet de-rooter, I realized that I’d rather struggle
as a writer than get rich doing what I didn’t want to do. Besides, it wasn’t
like I was getting rich. Just possibly electrocuted. Plus, I had an idea for a
critically acclaimed, best-selling, novel: Think Harry Potter meets
Hamlet, if Ophelia was oversexed, homicidal and undead.
As sure-fire as that sounds, it turns out reading novels — or
in the case of books like Moby Dick and Ulysses, pretending to
have read them — is a lot easier than writing one. Harry Potter Meets Hamlet
died in the first twenty pages.
My next attempt, Legend, took two years to write. Then
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. That would have been a valuable piece of info to get from my high
school guidance counselor.)
After years of submitting Legend to publishers — none
of whom had Krissy Caperson's gift for speedy rejection — it ended up in the
clutches of an aging book packager. Quoting Freud and promising “wealth, fame
and beautiful lovers,” plus a decent advance and a shot at the national book
award, he signed me to my first book contract.
If you’re checking, not only did I not win the National Book
Award. I never even got most of the advance.
Eventually — to keep me from regaining the rights—he published Legend
under his own microscopic imprint. No fanfare, not even a press release.
And a world-class-ugly cover that misspelled the word "hindrance."
Then he died. I swear I was 3,000 miles away at the time. I
have witnesses.
His imprint was absorbed by a not-quite-so-tiny publisher. In
a cloud of purple whale manure about movie deals, they brought out the highly
unanticipated second edition of my novel. This one had an excellent cover
except for the spot where they called the book an allegory. It sold about as
many copies as you would expect an allegory to sell. Maybe a few less.
Then, miraculously, Legend someone made it onto a UPI
Ten Most Underrated list, just seven places below a Meryl Streep movie about a
dingo that ate a baby. I got an agent. For 58 days. Then she also died. Buried
and everything—I checked.
Her surviving partner talked me into writing a business book.
I put together a proposal, which he sold within three weeks. You wouldn't
believe me if I said he died, too. So I won't.
But he did. This writing business had a considerably higher
mortality rate than I'd expected. It was like "Dawn of the Dead" out
there. But I was an author. If not exactly a working novelist.
Do
you write in different genres?
My novel, Legend, made that Ten Most Underrated List and remained
spectacularly underrated. On the other hand, once my nonfiction book was
published, The Wall Street Journal called. And TIME. A trade
association asked me to speak. I turned them down. I’d never spoken. Then they
mentioned the fee, which was exactly half of the advance on the book that had
taken me almost a year to research and write.
I did the presentation. To my surprise, they didn’t ask for
their money back. And from that point on, I talked for a living—and wrote
nonfiction books on the side. My speaking clients were largely generated by
those books and coverage in everything from The Today Show to The New
York Times to Funeral Service Insider. I became a mini-celebrity or
a quasi-celebrity or a B.S. celebrity, I'm not sure which. If you're thinking
that you've never heard of me, that's the difference between a make-believe
celebrity and, say, Taylor Swift or Tom Hanks or Jack the Ripper.
I'm someone reporters quote when Tom Hanks or Jack the Ripper
isn't available. My mother would be so proud.
What
would your readers be surprised to learn about you?
The next part of the story was as much a surprise to me as it
might be to my readers. I was speaking on an Asian cruise when I realized I
could no longer tell time. The next day, during a presentation, I introduced
the ship’s captain. Twenty minutes later, I picked him out of the audience and
asked him what he did for a living. (The uniform did look a tad familiar.) That
same day, I gave up trying to understand foreign currency. Even American money
was getting tricky. In Viet Nam, I handed a vendor two hundreds and a ten for a
$7.00 baseball cap. It was a very nice cap. But not $210 worth of nice.
Back home, the first thing my doctor did was have me draw a
clock face at ten to three. The second thing he did was take away my driver’s
license. He sent me for an immediate MRI. The nurse there couldn’t comment on
the results, but when I asked where the restroom was, she said, “I’m sorry, I can’t
let you go in there alone.”
I explained that bathroom visitation was a particular
expertise of mine.
“Like telling time?” she asked. “You need to talk to your
neurosurgeon.”
“I have a neurosurgeon?” Just
what I always wanted.
I also had a brain tumor—the size of a basketball. Or maybe
the neurosurgeon said “baseball.” I wasn’t tracking too well at that point.
Still, I immediately understood he was planning on carving open my skull with some
kind of power saw and slicing the tumor out. Suddenly telling time didn’t seem
nearly that important. Besides, I could always buy a digital watch.
Everyone said my neurosurgeon—or, as I
thought of him, “Chainsaw Charlie”—was extremely intelligent and skillful.
Still, I’ve spent my life around intelligent people, and I’ve seen some of the
dumb things they’ve done. To me, human intelligence seems way overrated.
Especially if it’s planning on slicing open my head with a power tool. If you
think about it, on a scale of everything there is to know in the universe, everything
there is to understand, the main difference between Einstein and Koko the
Wonder Chimp was that Einstein couldn’t pick up bananas with his feet. (As far
as I know.)
But my brain was running out of room in my skull. So, I let
Chainsaw Charlie carve away. Maybe I had
a seizure during surgery. The doctors weren’t sure. But I came out of it with
Lady Gaga singing non-stop in my head, and a vivid, fully-formed, horrific story,
like a memory of something that I’d just watched. Complete with open crypts,
dark spells, sudden death and the Ralph Lauren version of the Manson family.
Lady Gaga went away after a day or so. But the story stayed
with me. And when I was able, I spent a couple of years putting it all down,
trying to get it just right, bringing out all the suspense and the humor. And
that’s The Great Dick: And the
Dysfunctional Demon. And I became
the working novelist I set out to be all those years ago.
How
did you come up with the title for your latest book?
Obviously, The Great
Gatsby, a novel about a tragic love, and Moby Dick, a novel about a giant
Whale, are the same story just worked out differently for their different eras.
Or maybe not. Still, they’re both about someone’s desperate struggle to overcome
a failure that threatens to define their entire life. So, The Great Gatsby /Moby
Dick, if someone were to write that story today, why not call it, The
Great Dick? No giant whale, no tragic love. But a demon, dead bodies, strange
cults, deadly sins, bizarre rituals, and a hero who starts out by admitting
he’s an ass, then seems to set about proving it.
And if you want to know about the dysfunctional demon part of
the title, you’ve got to read the book.
Do
you title the book first or wait until after it’s complete?
I’ve done it both ways. In this case, The Great Dick
came to me after several drafts. The subtitle came after the book was finished
and approaching publication. First, it was The Great Dick: And the Demon,
but the publisher wanted something that would indicate the book’s humor. Thus,
it became The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.
If
this book is part of a series…what is the next book? Any details you can share?
The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon was written as a
stand-alone novel. However, the excitement and the characters were so great,
and it’s been so well received, that I couldn’t resist doing a follow-up to investigate
what happens next.
Do
you have any advice for other writers?
When I speak to writers conference, most of what I have to say
comes down to a single word. “Write.” If you want to be a writer, write. Treat
it as a job. Maybe not one you can do 40 hours a week, but the more you write,
the better you’ll get and the sooner you’ll develop you own voice.
Write when it’s flowing like liquid gold. Write when it you
can barely come up with a coherent sentence. Then re-write—in both cases—and re-write
some more. Don’t tell me you’ve got writer’s block. Doctors aren’t allowed to have doctor’s
block. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block. This is a job. If you sit around
waiting for inspiration, you’ll still be waiting while others—some of them with
less talent—are autographing books for their fans.
And if you want to sell books get a platform. That’s what
speaking did for me. It doesn’t matter what your platform is, if it’s social
media, or a newsletter or column or podcast or a radio show, as long as it gives
you a following. Once you’ve got a big enough audience, publishes want to work
with you to get access to that audience.
When
you’re not writing what do you do? Do you have any hobbies or guilty pleasures?
Discovering you have brain cancer focuses the mind. It made me
realize that I no longer wanted to spend my life in airports and hotels doing
all those speaking gigs. I still do some. I love speaking. But I wanted to be what
I always wanted to be, a novelist. I also started writing the Slightly
Off-Kilter column which is not only fun to do, but makes up for giving up
some of my speaking platform. Fortunately, Creators syndicate decided to
syndicate it. So writing is both my job and my hobby.
My other hobbies include reading, films, hiking, music. I’ve
also been trying to learn Spanish, pretty unsuccessfully, for a while now.
Do
you have a song or playlist that you think represents this book?
Playlist for The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon
Spotify YouTube Music Apple Music
There are
nineteen songs positioned throughout the story. When you come to one, you can:
1.
let it play in the background at
whatever volume you like while you continue reading;
OR
2.
you can stop and focus on the music;
OR
3.
Or you can ignore the music altogether.
The story works without it just fine. (All those rave endorsements came from
people who read the silent version.)
CHAPTER 1
Page 19. At the beginning, play:
Sunny Side of Heaven by
Fleetwood Mac
CHAPTER 5
Page 45. After ”She bounced
up the stairs quickly.” Play:
Moonlight Mile by the Rolling Stones
CHAPTER 7
Page
68. Zfter “The rain had yielded to a heavy mist” Play:
Ain’t No Ash Will Burn by The Renegades
CHAPTER
10
Page
95. After “Stephen was brave. At least when I knew him.” Play:
From Silver Lake by Jackson Browne
CHAPTER 11
Page 107. After “Then R. Dean Taylor began to sing his only U.S. hit,” Play
Indiana Wants Me by R. Dean Taylor
CHAPTER 13
Page 131. After “then
turned, apparently randomly, at various other passageways” Play:
Blue Moon by The Marcels
CHAPTER 15
Page 172. After "Would
you like to smoke some dope?”
Play:
Let Me Touch You for Awhile by Alison Krauss &
Union Station
CHAPTER 18
Page 193. After “a
fringe‑covered Victoria with long straight hair” play:
Coming Back to Me by The Jefferson Airplane
CHAPTER 20
Page 237. After “climbed
into bed and stared at the ceiling for a while.” Play:
Working Girl—Let the River Run by Carly Simon (The Film
Band)
CHAPTER 25
Page 282. After
”and inside the crypt it felt contaminated.” Play:
Dust by Fleetwood Mac
CHAPTER
28
Page
206. After ”I wanted her to want me too as
badly as I ever wanted anything” Play:
Land of Hope and Dreams by Bruce Springsteen
CHAPTER
30
Page
330. After “my grandmother’s house on the morning after her death.” Play:
The Maker by Daniel Lanois
CHAPTER
32
Page
348. After “I got dressed, got in the VW
and just drove.” Play:
Will You Remember Me by Rosanne Cash
CHAPTER
33
Page
369. After “within minutes was either
asleep or pretending to be.” Play:
Same Mistake by James Blunt
CHAPTER
38
Page
402. After “Hampert reached over and
flipped a switch.” Play:
Bring You Joy by Argent
CHAPTER
43
Page
435. At the beginning of the chapter, play::
Downtown
Train by Rod Stewart
CHAPTER
46
Page
457. After ‘Before she allowed me to die.” Play:
A Whiter Shade of Pale
EPILOGUE
Page
483. After “In that case,” she smiled,
“I’ll call him Gavin “ Play:
Going Home by Mark Knopfler
AT THE END Play:
Night Rolls
In by
Al Stewart
The Great Dick and the Dysfunctional Demon Barry Maher
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Date of Publication: 09/2025
ISBN: 978-1968532130
ASIN: B0FKWK2K7C
Number of pages: 464
Word Count: 125,000
Tagline: A wickedly funny, dark humor. supernatural thriller, blending horror with a thrilling murder mystery.
Book Description:
It’s 1982. Steve Witowski was once a hero. Now he’s simply a failed songwriter, running from the law. Worse, he’s just killed a man—while almost accidentally saving a woman from what seemed to be the strongest, most blood-thirsty wino in California.
He should keep moving. But the woman, Victoria, is beyond stunning. Steve stays. And Victoria becomes just a part of a mystery he can’t unravel. Even as the face of the man he just killed slowly, gradually appears on his arm. And what starts out as a gritty crime story spirals into what author David Moody called, “A chillingly funny, hot, sweaty, magic and murder infused rollercoaster.” Complete with open crypts, dark spells, sudden death, and forces more powerful and demonic than Steve understands. Where nothing is what it seems. And Steve may be the next victim.
Excerpt
Back in the 60s .
. .
On Wednesday October 13th, 1968, a faculty
panel recommended the dismissal of Professor John Harris—in absentia, as no one
at Harvard had seen or heard from him in weeks. Harris later bragged about
delivering his final lecture on “one shitload and a half of LSD.” According to
the recording made available to the faculty panel, this was the sum total of
that lecture:
“Good
afternoon. Wow. American Literature, hunh? Let’s see. Moby Dick today. Right?”
“Moby
Dick?” asked a confused voice. “No. What happened to The Scarlet Letter?”
“Right. Moby
Dick,” Harris continued. “Great book. None of you have read it. None of you
are going to read it. Nobody ever does. What you need to understand is that as
far as I’m concerned—and I’m the fucking professor—Moby Dick is the same story as The
Great Gatsby, which some of you may read. I call it, ‘the half-assed
struggle of the individual to put their world to rights in the face of a
failure that threatens to define their life.’ I think that’s from my thesis.
Though maybe it’s not pretentious enough.”
Harris
laughed. “Hey! How about this? Great
Gatsby/Moby Dick: same story, different era, right? So, if someone someday
tries to write that story for this generation, they should call it The Great Dick. That’d be perfect,
wouldn’t it? The Great Dick. Alright,
that’s got to be almost fifty minutes. See you next . . . whenever. Wow.”
SUNDAY,
MARCH 21, 1982
Two Women and One Corpse
“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to lie well.”
—Samuel Johnson
CHAPTER
1
Okay, let me start out by admitting
that I was an asshole. I know that. The ludicrous amount of fame and acclaim
and money I’ve had dumped on me since that time only makes it more glaring. The
fact that we lived in a different world back in 1982 is no excuse. It was the
same world. It just wasn’t the world we thought it was.
I remember it was a Sunday night.
Sundays always feel different. Looking back now and Googling a 1982 calendar,
I’d guess it was Sunday, March 21st. I remember waking up and within
minutes making the decision to leave. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I
eased myself out of the rickety hide‑a‑bed.
Immediately, Maria rolled over into
the spot I'd just vacated, breathing loudly through her nose and mouth, not
quite snoring. I hate to say it, but she looked every minute of her thirty
years. Her thick dark hair clung damply to her face; her heavy arms stretched
outward. The cast on her left wrist looked like a giant manacle.
The grandfather clock beside the cigar store Indian
read 1:37, though a few minutes before, it had chimed four times. That made as
much sense as anything else in my life. I was thirty-five years old, a Harvard
grad who’d spent the previous two years faking his way through a $13,500 a year
job as an territory rep for the Richmond Tobacco company. That $13,500 was the
most money I’d ever made. You’re probably thinking that when you adjust for
inflation and translate that $13,500 into today’s dollars, it’s a lot more
impressive.
No, it’s not.
I slipped on my jersey and my jeans and gathered the
rest of my things in my old gym bag. Fortunately, enough moonlight crept in
around the edges of the tattered drapes to give the room a dim glow. I wondered
if it would be safe to hitchhike out of there, or if Indiana had already notified
the California Highway Patrol that I was wanted.
My situation was bad. But not bad enough to, say,
crawl into a grave with a rotting corpse.
That would come later.
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 appeared 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.
Then he started telling his stories to audiences. More important, he started telling his stories to audiences and charging. That took him all over the country and around the world: his client list a Who’s Who of leading corporations, associations and cruise lines. You may have seen Barry on The Today Show, CNN, CBS or CNBC, or read about him in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today or in his own, Slightly Off-Kilter syndicated column.
On the downside, he’s also 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.
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