Take Five: Barry Knister and SOMEONE BETTER THAN YOU
By Writer Unboxed | December 8, 2024 |
We are delighted to bring you a sneak-peek at the new release from longtime WU community member Barry Knister. The book, SOMEONE BETTER THAN YOU, is available now. What’s the pitch?
For years, Brady Ritz writes satire about his family and friends under a fake name, but when vanity leads him to publish a collection of his essays under his own name, his wife Natalie leaves him alone in their Naples, Florida golf community. It doesn’t matter that what he wrote is often right, or that he concealed people’s identities. Once they learn Brady wrote a book, people start reading, and finding themselves.
If you’ve been around WU for any length of time, you already know that Barry is insightful and often dryly hilarious. In fact, at the most recent WU UnConference, Barry’s reading from his own work had us all in stitches. Ready to learn more?
Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?
BK: Someone Better Than You follows retired newspaper editor Brady Ritz in the months after he makes a huge mistake. As a hobby, for years Brady wrote a satirical column for Grumble, an obscure little magazine. He used neighbors in his retirement golf community and family members as material. He took pains to conceal their identities, and wisely used a pseudonym. But when Grumble goes out of business, vanity leads Ritz to publish a collection of his columns. The fallout is what fuels the novel.
Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?
BK: Even though he sees American society as “buried under a compost mound of feelings,” I hope readers will come to appreciate Brady. Yes, he is abrasive and critical, but he is also essentially a good man. Can readers–most of whom will be women–become invested in such a character? It’s less easy to bring off likeability for such a person, but I hope readers will “get” Brady. I also hope they will appreciate the story in terms of its subtitle: A Comedy of Manners.
Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?
BK: Brady Ritz is something like the protagonist in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove. He’s at odds with himself and his times. Brady doesn’t believe people really change. They just adapt, or as he puts it, they “knuckle under.” But qualities in his makeup that have been suggested early on are released by story’s end. Chief among them are compassion and kindness. But because Ritz sees society as preoccupied with feelings, when they emerge in himself, they do so in very exaggerated terms. At odds with Ritz’s difficult self are other characters, first and foremost his estranged wife Natalie. A reveal related to her long-suffering character is what concludes the novel. It’s meant as an ironic comment on the book’s title.
Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?
BK: The first was maintaining Brady Ritz’s difficult self without alienating readers. This was complicated for me by not giving Brady the kind of change or transformation that most think should be true of main characters. By story’s end, Ritz is still himself, but in more complete terms. The second challenge for me was the oldest one facing writers and everyone else: making choices. Not to get too artsy craftsy about it, if you make the mistake of seeing many of the words you write as replaceable by any number of other words, you find yourself in what the comedian Ron White would call “something of a pickle.”
Q5: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?
BK: The rewards came with the energy and optimism of drafting the story some years ago. As a retiree, I wanted to write something for and about my cohort, my tribe. I hoped it would be amusing without using the cliches often relied on by those who write about getting old or being old. Rewriting it has also been rewarding, but at some point I came to realize that I didn’t want to let go of Someone Better Than You. I was afraid I would hit “send,” look up from the keyboard, and see a fog bank or blizzard. So, at last agreeing with myself to be done was a final reward.
Congratulations on your new book, Barry! Thank you this enticing look behind-the-scenes.
WU Community, you can learn more about Barry’s latest novel on his website, or by following him on FB or IG, or by following the buy-links below. Read on!
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Write on!
Barry, I’m so happy to see this book out in the world, and looking forward to reading Brady’s story. From what I’ve seen, I think you nailed that sweet spot you were aiming for with his character. Congratulations on your release! I hope this book gets the wide readership it deserves.
Thank you, Tiffany, for your kind words, and for the considerable help your editing expertise brought to this story. I’ll have more to say about that in an upcoming guest post.
I’m ordering copies of your book for Christmas giving, Barry. It’s exactly the right tone for a few family members, and I know they’ll appreciate your sense of humor. Congratulations, my friend!
Therese– “It’s exactly the right tone for a FEW family members”–Haha, there are always a few of us. Friend to friend, thank you for your gift-giving idea.
Looking forward to reading this, Barry. Congratulations!
Liz–I hope you like it. No, actually I hope you love it!
Congratulations on your release, Barry!!
Thank you, Susan. Some of the comments you’ve made at WU have filled me with admiration.
Where the hell are the buy buttons? Why can’t I buy this sucker now? Who put this thing together? What’s wrong with them?
And get the hell off my goddamn lawn!!
Ahem.
Seriously, I cannot wait for this to be in my greedy little hands, though I guess I am obliged to do so. My lovely wife, whom you know virtually, is is similarly intrigued and eager. (Love the cover. )
So, to recap: Book, please. I want the damn book. Now.
Don’t look at me like that.
Buy buttons are just beneath the post! Tell me you see them, please, or tell me we’re having a tech issue.
David–I know you to be among those who humble the rest of us. But David, the buy buttons are there, I see them, they work. Just ask Fergus, he’ll show you how it’s done. Best to Mette!
Okay, fine, make a monkey out of me. I bought the damn book. Happy now?
Mette sends her regards. Fergus says, “Woof.” Take that any way you want.
David: I know what “Woof” means, and I couldn’t agree more.
I identify with this character wholeheartedly! Where IS the buy button?
You’re all making me nervous over your BUY button comments. Do you not see them under the post?
Chris–If you identify with Brady Ritz, I have a short list of therapists I’d be happy to pass along. BTW, the buy buttons work!
Ove, I mean Barry, big congrats on the release! And thank you for your consistently good, perceptive and sometimes challenging comments here on WU—you are a mainstay. Best success with the work.
Therese, the Buy buttons live!
Tom–thank you for your generous comment. You will have to take it on faith that it’s NOT a boilerplate politeness on my part to tell you I always read your comments for their wit and intelligence.
Wow, congrats, Barry. Your comments here are always filled with experience and often a touch of humor. I see you as a writer of wisdom who when given that compliment has a humorous response. Looking forward to that same creativity in your novel.
Beth, thank you. But me, a “writer of wisdom”? I’m sorry, but that’s too heavy a lift for jokey old me. If readers don’t nod off in the middle of the page, that’ll do just fine for me.
Congrats, Barry! The world could use a few more Ove-type characters. Thank you for that. It’s in my shopping cart!
Thank you, Lisa. Ove tugs at the heartstrings by being a grieving widower who turns out to be a good neighbor, and who saves an abandoned cat. Brady Ritz is angst-ridden rather than grieving, but he is a good neighbor who does right by a dog. So that’s something. Of course I hope you enjoy the story.
Just wanted to say Congratulations! Getting a book finished an out is a huge milestone.
Alicia–those who write “long-form narrative fiction,” i.e., novels are the only ones who actually know what’s involved. If you read Someone Better Than You, of course I hope you’ll enjoy it.
I’ve downloaded it! It will be a treat for me after I finish moving house in two weeks. Although it features a longsuffering Natalie from Michigan–that will be amusing just for me ;-)