Bryan Garners Praise For Satiric Mystery Novel

May 16, 2007

Bill Bruns , Managing Editor

In November 2004, when his daughter Georgia was seven months old and he was about to undergo a second round of chemotherapy for leukemia, Bill Bryan knew it was time to write the novel he had long avoided during his lucrative career as a film and television writer.

'The chemo for my type of leukemia is a one-week regimen, in which a portable device pumps the agent directly into the heart via a 'PIC' line around the clock,' Bryan recalled in an interview this week. 'All forms of chemotherapy wipe out the body's immune system, so the two-week period following the regimen is when one is most vulnerable to infections of all sorts. The doctors thus advise minimal contact with the outside world.'

Given that scenario, Bryan decided to 'make lemonade from lemons. If I was going to be confined to a hermit's existence, I might as well begin the hermit-like task of writing a novel.'

Bryan said he already knew his book would be a first-person murder mystery, narrated by a journalist of some sorts, and would skewer the likes of reality television, Hollywood lawyers and gangsta rap with politically incorrect satire and biting humor.

'My instinct has always been to be as provocative as possible,' he said. 'I like to speak colorfully and take a strong position.'

Working in his home office in Pacific Palisades, Bryan immediately began writing 1,000 to 1,500 words a day, seven days a week, editing ruthlessly as he went along. His leukemia went into remission, and he completed the manuscript--titled 'Keep It Real'--in July 2005. His New York agent, Al Zuckerman of Writers House, received a 'tremendous initial response' from various publishing houses, but no sale until many months later, when the book was acquired by Bleak House, a small but respected publisher in Madison, Wisconsin.

Bryan's relentlessly funny, fast-paced and profane novel ($24.95) arrived at Village Books on Swarthmore this week, and he will discuss the book and sign copies on Saturday, May 19, at 5 p.m. Then he's off to San Francisco and New York, where his agent will host a publication party.

The early reviews have certainly encouraged Bryan to begin plotting his second book, once he completes his self-described 'Barnum and Bailey' campaign to promote sales. Early reviews and accolades from fellow writers have certainly helped generate a positive buzz. Publishers Weekly stated that Bryan has 'a real gift for satire,' and Dave Barry wrote, 'If you like to laugh, and you hate reality TV, you will love this wonderfully, viciously hilarious book.'

This is just the kind of praise Bryan hoped to hear when he began inventing the crazed world of Ted Collins, a former Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reporter whose issues with anger management have exiled him from the newspaper business and forced him to slum as co-executive producer of a hit reality TV show called 'The Mogul.' During his weekly one-hour visit with his daughter (Ted was outmaneuvered by his ex-wife and her sleazy entertainment-lawyer husband), he accidentally witnesses a nasty squabble between a beautiful young woman and her lover, celebrity rapper Boney, a client of his ex-wife's husband. When the young woman disappears, and is later found murdered, Ted sees an opportunity to regain his professional self-respect while he investigates Boney as a guest of 'The Mogul.' Could the solving of the woman's murder be the key to his redemption?

Bryan, who enjoyed a highly successful career writing and producing TV comedy hits such as 'Night Court' and 'Coach,' consciously set out to write a Dan Jenkins-styled novel that he hoped would 'make people laugh on every page.' This was his training, working on popular sitcoms, and he has found that when he's writing fiction, 'There's always a joke hanging out there; I start writing a sentence and a joke comes into view.'

Basically, Bryan admitted, 'I wanted to write something that would appeal to a relatively underserved audience'educated men with a sense of humor and a naughty streak. There isn't much fiction out there like this in any great quantity.'

He laughed and said, 'I didn't write this book for the Palisades Junior Women's Club, but to my great surprise and delight, relatively few people of either gender seem to be put off.' In fact, his wife Jennifer (a former reality TV producer!) and her Junior Women friends 'are all rooting for it to succeed.'