The Mastermind Behind Milo

Lurking in the shadows of a Kansas university classroom is Barry Smith, a nondescript, Iowa farm-raised finance professor who looks like… well, a finance professor.

Just look at these credentials: Faculty member at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas. Previous faculty member of New Mexico State University, Drake University, and the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Father of two sons, Evan and Jordan. Grandfather of Jackson and Sofia.

Not even some of Smith’s closest friends would have imagined him capable of breathing life into a serial killer such as the title character of his debut novel, Only Milo, published Sept. 1 by Inkwater Press.

Milo is a retired would-be writer who gets fed up with being a nobody and decides to take matters—and lives—into his own hands. Here’s what the author of Only Milo has to say about his twisted creation:

 

What is your favorite thing about Milo, the title character of Only Milo?

I really like the fact that he has accomplished practically nothing in his life—to the outside world, at least—but at the age of 62 he finally grabs life by the throat and starts to take control of his own destiny. Of course, his method of doing so is a bit… unconventional.

 

From what twisted recesses of your mind did Milo spring?

Milo came into my life in the early 1990s, when I was a member of a writing group in New Mexico. At that point, he was a younger character, in his forties. I viewed him as someone who had always blended into the wallpaper and never received credit for anything he did. The phrase “it’s only Milo” was the driving force for this character, an individual who was always taken for granted. I tried to write Only Milo two different times but never got past page two. I didn’t have the right story.

More than a decade later, I stopped at a diner in Pratt, Kansas, for breakfast. Unfortunately, I got there fifteen minutes too late, so I ordered a Reuben sandwich instead. The good news was it was not made with SPAM. The bad news was it probably would have tasted better if it had been.

When I got home, I wrote the sentence, “Maybe it was the SPAM Reuben Sandwich.” I knew it was the first line of a new work and that the narrator had made a SPAM Reuben for a female friend who was not impressed. I closed up the file and went to bed.

The next morning I turned on the computer, read the first line, and words started pouring out of me. After writing most of the first chapter, I realized the narrator was Milo, the character I had created years before, only now he was 62 years old, living on Social Security and eating SPAM.

 

Does Milo share any common traits with you? Have you ever stolen a firearm or forged a legal document?

These are the things I know for sure I have in common with Milo: As a young, poor married couple, my wife and I did eat SPAM Reuben sandwiches on occasion. My favorite TV show is Pardon the Interruption. I watch CSI and Dexter. I lived in Las Cruces, NM for twenty years. Soon after I moved there, the Catholic priest scandal broke and I did have a personal connection to it. I have two novels in my closet. (Milo has twelve.)

I have never stolen a firearm or forged a legal document. I also have never had a character murder someone in anything I had ever written previously.

 

Hmmm…. You didn’t actually say you’ve never murdered anyone yourself. But never mind. Have you ever plotted someone’s death? (Just for pretend, of course…) If you did, what method would you use?

I have never come close to doing anything like that, but I have TiVo, so I’ve watched more CSI, NCIS, and Criminal Minds in the last couple of years than ever before. Last fall it really hit me that anyone watching this set of shows witnesses six to ten “murders” every week.

That’s why I think it would be so easy for Milo to kill people, even though the concept has probably never entered his mind in the past. Watching those shows makes murder seem a fairly normal human activity.

Last Thanksgiving, my kids brought a season’s worth of Dexter shows, and we watched them all. That gave me the idea of “justified” murder, which I find fascinating. Milo certainly feels, in his unique way, that his murders are justified.

I think untraceable poison is the way to go. But I also like Dexter’s method of paralyzing the victim first and then taking your time with the actual murder. Of course, Dexter never watched his favorite TV show while he was doing his work!!!

 

It seems your academic, professorial demeanor masks a rather diabolical mind. What was it like to have to think like a killer for this book?

I had no idea Milo would be a serial killer when I created him in the early 90s or when I starting writing this book in January. But I let this novel flow freely, and murder is what evolved. It was a tremendous surprise to me.

I will say that throughout my life I have always had a fascination with serial killing. I find it abhorrent but also interesting—like a train wreck, I guess—so maybe it is not so surprising that I would write about a serial killer.

At first I had no idea this was possible for the Milo character, but I now know that having Milo take control of his life and his surroundings was the concept I needed to make this character work. In earlier attempts to write about Milo, I was trying to write about the uneventful part of his life when he never accomplished anything. In Only Milo, that part of his life is behind him and now we get to see Milo come alive. That was really fun.

 

Clearly there is more to you than your curriculum vitae suggests. How does a professor of finance become the author of a quirky thriller about murder in the publishing industry?

I have been writing fiction off and on (mainly off) for the last 25 years. In 1986, I took two fiction-writing classes from Kevin McIlvoy at New Mexico State University. I then joined a writing group for a few years that included many people who have become very successful fiction writers. Unfortunately, life got in the way. I got divorced and had full custody of two young boys, and I had to put my writing on hold. Three years ago, I got serious about writing again and have been working on three other books since then.

On a side note: My older son, Evan Lavender-Smith, has become an outstanding and well-respected fiction writer and has two short novels under contract that will be coming out in the next year or so. He has also published a large number of short stories and is in the process of getting a collection of stories published as a book. So fiction writing runs in the family.

 

Are your students aware of your book? What about your colleagues?

Only my adult students in Kansas City are aware of it, and they were really fascinated by the fact that their finance teacher would write a novel. In general, I think people find it unusual that a business professor would be a novelist.

My business professor friends at Emporia State had no idea I was a writer, so it has really been interesting to see their reaction. My friends from the past knew I was a writer, but I think they will be really surprised about the murder aspects of this novel. They would never have expected that. 

 

You employ a very strong narrative voice and unusual writing style. How did you develop this style?

To a large extent, I have no idea.  Writing this novel was almost an out-of-body experience. However, I do think Only Milo has a particular rhythm to it that was inspired, believe it or not, by Beethoven’s “Egmont Overture.” Beethoven knew that the human ear was best engaged when hearing passages in patterns of three. You will notice I used that idea constantly in Only Milo, and I think it is very effective, but there are also times it is important to break from the pattern of three, as Beethoven did, and that is also done throughout Only Milo.

The short, minimalist voice simply came from the Milo character. And that led to very short chapters, which I know will be considered experimental and unusual. I never thought I would write a novel that had chapters with only two sentences, but I let the character’s voice carry me, and this is what developed.

 

Do you feel that Milo is a sympathetic character? If so, what is it you think people will relate to?

People who have read it (mainly friends and family) find Milo to be a sympathetic character, and I think this is mainly because he is so surprising and full of life. I also think people relate to Milo because everyone has wanted a co-worker, a school bully, a boss, or some other unpleasant person to just disappear somehow. Milo makes people like that disappear, and I think everyone can relate to that desire vicariously.