It Rhymes With Truth received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Rich Miller.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
My debut novel is It Rhymes With Truth. It was published in June 2024 and I am so excited that it has gotten glowing reviews from IndieReader and other reviewers. The feedback has been an author’s dream.
What’s the book’s first line?
Since the first line is so short, I’ll share the first few lines:
Do you remember the day we met? I didn’t know anyone had noticed me out there, but you were watching me from behind the curtain of your sliding door. Just like you do when a black-throated blue warbler has been lured in by your treats and you don’t want to scare it off. It was the sound of the rock that did it, smacking down against the concrete to crack the sunflower seeds, but mostly scattering them and making a mess. That made you look outside, and there I was squatting down in my filthy green shirt with the stegosaurus on the front.
The narrator of the book is an 8 and a half year old homeless boy who is stealing seeds from the birdfeeder of an elderly woman named Ruth. She decides right then and there to try to save him. But it turns out that both of them need saving.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
After seeing the boy at her birdfeeder, Ruth lures him into her web using cookies, milk and Mariners baseball games on the tv. She succeeds, but the boy is a flight risk. He keeps wanting to flee, and she keeps trying to stop him. They reach an uneasy truce and he stays, but there’s a problem: it’s a retirement home, so he needs to live there in secret. That leads to a series of misadventures and a rising body count – which is mostly not their fault. The book is written by the narrator at the age of 18 looking back at 10 years of his life with Ruth. And the book has an audience of one: Ruth herself.
Everyone who reads it says it is hilarious and heartbreaking and a page-turner. That is so great to hear.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
When I was 11, my family moved from an industrial city outside of Boston down to Florida, and we were surrounded by retirement homes. I was amazed at how many there were in South Florida. They all had signs about how they were a “55+ Community” or a “60+ Community” as a way to avoid using terms like retirement home and rest home. But then they started trying to outdo one another turning those into taglines that made it sound like exclusive clubs. “55+ Residents Only!” “Under 55? You can visit. But sorry, you can’t stay!” Those signs made me think about whether kids could secretly live there and not get found out. I was pretty sure I would last at least a week before being discovered. Maybe even two weeks!
So that was an early seed for this. But underneath that story are some pretty big questions that I wanted to explore. How far would you go for someone you love? When you’ve been aching for love your entire life, will you be able to accept it when it finally arrives? Is it possible to save someone if they don’t want to be saved? How does it impact grief when you have deep regrets about things you can’t undo? I wanted to have readers think about those important questions but do so with a story that makes you laugh out loud on every page.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
This is a book that sticks with you. Everyone who has read it has told me that, which is the highest compliment. In my life, there have been a few books that have that effect on me. Books by Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut and Ursula Le Guin. Books by Jim Thompson and Stephen King. Those are special books to me that have shaped how I see the world and how I understand myself and people around me.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
This book is about Ruth. In fact, it’s named after her. When she introduces herself to the boy, she says “My name is Ruth. Rhymes with truth. And tooth. And John Wilkes Booth” The boy is writing the book for her, and she is the main character.
Who does she remind me of? It’s like she’s a fifth member of the Golden Girls, but willing to do literally anything for the people she loves. So you could say that Ruth is like across between the Golden Girls and Thelma & Louise.
She is always saying quotable things, which I call Ruthisms. Things like “the only psychology I believe in is reverse psychology” and Nothing hurts more than unrequited love. Except for a zit inside your nostril. That hurts way worse.” She’s a force of nature that sucks the boy into a whirlwind, and it leads to an epic battle of wills between the two of them. It may not have as much conflict as War and Peace, but it’s a close second for sure. Ha!
When did you first decide to become an author?
I was crazy about books from a very young age. They were amazing to me. The cover art. The illustrations. The way writers could create an entire world by typing words on a page. I either wanted to write books or be center fielder for the Red Sox. My dream of being an author has come true, so does that mean I still have a shot at a baseball career? Are the Red Sox looking for a middle-aged guy who will pull a hamstring running to first base?
Is this the first book you’ve written?
his is my first published novel, but it’s the second that I’ve finished. At some point I’ll go back to that first novel, but right now I’m focused on the next book I’m working on, which is called Love Will Surely Save You, If It Doesn’t Kill You First. I’m really excited about it.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I’ve been a professional writer for more than 25 years in the business world, and I’m very proud of that. That’s exactly what Kurt Vonnegut did before he was able to write full time, didn’t he? So I’m in pretty nifty company with that day job. For a kid like me who grew up in a place where everyone had factory jobs and other physically demanding blue collar jobs, having a career where you would sit at a desk and type was unthinkable. So I feel incredibly lucky to have that day job, and even luckier to be a published author as well.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
Finding time to write has always been challenging because of my other responsibilities. But my life is so much fuller when I write. Sometimes I am able to squeeze it into late night hours, but most of my writing is done in intensive bursts when I do mini writing retreats for a weekend. I often invite friends to those so they can work on their creative projects alongside me – like a modern artistic commune. They paint or write or draw or work on music, and everyone’s talents are amazing.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
I love it. I have been able to shape every aspect of the process and work with great people who are amazingly talented. I think great things happen when people bet on themselves, and I love to see so many authors doing exactly that and being so successful. Yes, it’s a lot of work being an indie, but it’s totally worth it.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
Have fun! You’re doing something that people dream about but don’t take action on. So you have lots to celebrate. If you let that sense of celebration come through in how you market the book and talk to people about it, that feeling will be infectious – the good kind of infectious. Not the kind of infectious like in Stephen King’s The Stand. That’s a very bad kind.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
The publishing industry is going through such a dramatic transformation right now, and so many of the changes have made them risk-averse. Risk-averse about finding and supporting new voices. Risk-averse about supporting the few authors they sign—putting all the risk and burden on authors’ shoulders. Even risk-averse about the book covers designs that they are willing to approve. I’m all of these changes lead the industry to a model that helps readers find new authors they will love and that better supports authors who are already established. The world needs a healthy publishing industry.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
It’s that childhood dream that motivates me. Plus it’s incredible fun. I giggle to myself constantly when I’m writing, which reminds me of something I read about Kafka when I was a kid. Years before I should legally have been exposed to Kafka, I read a bunch of his books and a biography of him. The biography had a story that might be apocryphal: When he was writing, people could hear him cackling about what he was putting down on the page; and when he read excerpts at the salons in Prague, he could hardly get through the readings because he was in hysterics laughing at what he was putting his characters through. To me, that has always been my vision of an author. Not the heavy drinkers typing with bottles next to them, like Hemingway and Hammett and so many others. I wanted to be like Franz, using writing as therapy and laughing at what my brain puts on the page. When I’m giggling, I know I’m on the right track.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
I have lived in Portland, Oregon for more than 20 years and I always hoped I would have a chance to bump into Ursula Le Guin at a coffeeshop or bookstore and tell her how much her books mean to me. I didn’t have the chance before she passed away, but I still think about it whenever I get coffee in her neighborhood or look for books in Powell’s. She is a giant of world literature who I wish I had met. Plus I bet she had some amazing stories about Philip K. Dick and the other sci-fi writers of that generation, too.
Which book do you wish you could have written?
Oh gosh, I could list 137 books. But I’ll go with my favorite: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. I can’t get enough of Vonnegut’s deadpan delivery in a book that deeply mourns our silly, doomed species at the same time that it desperately tries to shake some sense into us. It’s amazing.