Bookpleasures.com welcomesas our guest Barry Wilker author of The Lapone Sisters.

 Barry spent forty-three years working as an interior designer for myriad clients across the United States. 

 Norm: Good day Barry and thanks for taking part in our interview.

 Please tell our readers a little bit about your personal and professional background. 

 Barry: As you’ve noted, I spent the greatest part of my working life as an interior designer. I was successful and worked with clients and businesses from coast to coast.

My career came about through a series of serendipitous events. I was not the best student in the liberal private school I attended for twelve years.

Grades were never important to me. I excelled at subjects I liked. If a class bored me, I would retreat into my imagination. College followed the same pattern. I loved classes in art and art history, English lit, biology and psychology.

When my father insisted I pursue a degree in Business Administration, I skipped econ classes and signed up for an art studio course.

I never did settle on a major. In my brief career as a bank teller in the most affluent area of Nashville, I saw the client balances and I saw the airs folks projected.

For the first time in my life I began to understand the facades people present. It turned out to be a lesson in reading people I was able to use throughout my career.

I fell into a temporary position at an upscale furniture store in the state quite by accident. I was hired on a three month trial basis to do floor display in a 50 thousand square foot area. It turned out I was a natural.

I was finally able to use my sense of scale and color. Planning and implementing an advertising program were added to my duties.

With the help of a gifted photographer and an open-minded ad agency, we won several awards. Before my four-year tenure came to an end, I was selecting fabrics for all the upholstered furniture in the store.

In 1980 I decided to check out the West Coast and headed to Los Angeles for a month. I had never been west of the Mississippi river.

Luckily, I had a friend who I planned to stay with for a week or so before heading north to San Francisco. Never made it to San Francisco that summer. I fell in love with Los Angeles and also fell in love with my current spouse.

I did not have a job. What I had was a great resume, confidence, drive, ambition and a great sense of humor that landed me a job at a contemporary furniture store on La Brea Avenue in LA.

It was kismet. I learned to love the modern European styles as much as I had loved traditional in Nashville. That opportunity gave me the focus my career needed. I was an interior designer.

Norm: What it the one thing other people always seem to get wrong about you?

Barry: My intelligence. I ask a lot of questions because I’m naturally curious. Sometimes I do it just to get a reaction from people.

The answers and attitudes I get are telling. A little poking around and I learn who I’m really talking with. To borrow from an old ad, “Is it live or is it Memorex?”

Norm: How did your experience in interior design inform the writing process of The Lapone Sisters?

Barry: Details. Details. Details. The interior design business was all about details. It sometimes took two years to complete a home.

It could take hours to complete and re-check a purchase order for a single sofa because of all the detailed specifications pertaining to that one item.

Then there was follow up, shipping to organize, and more details to finish off the whole package. And I cared! I cared about my customers. I cared about my staff.

The attention to detail came into great use in creating The Lapone Sisters. I cared about my characters.

Norm: When did the idea for this book first emerge?

Barry: When I would be working with the same client for years, I would hear stories, the same stories over and over. I learned to zone out, smile, half listen and dream up ideas for my story.

It was always a story. At that time, I hadn’t the slightest idea to write a novel. I conjured up collages of people and funny ideas that I would write down and stick in a folder, saved for later.

Norm: How did you choose the names of your characters?

Barry: Really? Okay, I was with my spouse and our best friend. We were stoned on pot. 1980. Whenever that happened which was not a regular thing at all, my imagination went wild and my characters came alive. In between laughs, those characters needed names.

Originally they were named Shmamelda, Shmirtle, and Esmerelda. Once I began writing the novel I needed to find a reason for the odd names.

After searching for the names everywhere I discovered two similar names common in Romania, Schmellda and Esmerelda. It was necessary to change poor Shmirtle to Sorina.

Because of the names, I needed to add a little backstory at the very beginning of the book.

Norm: Are the characters in your book based on people you know or have encountered or are they strictly fictional?  

Barry: I can only say they are amalgamations of individuals that have crossed my life’s path.

Norm: Is there anything of you in the novel?

Barry: Yes, in Sorina. I had a horrible stutter until I was about 22. I learned to live with it and eventually overcame about 95% of it. It affected my school life. I was afraid to ask questions in class and terrified the instructor would ask me to the black board.

Norm: Did you think about your reading public when you wrote the book? Did you imagine a  specific reader?

Barry: I did and then I did not. What I wanted was to lift peoples’ spirits. The novel was created during the Covid shutdowns. We all needed a happier diversion. 

Norm: Did you write the book more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two? Please summarize your writing process.  

Barry: Think of a crazy quilt and how it is sewn together, hand-stitched piece by piece. It is a random process up to the point the quilter has a vision of the finished piece.

Writing was like that for me. I had lots and lots of pieces I’d collected since 1980. I finally spread them all out and began sewing them together.

Norm: What was the time-line between the time you decided to write your book and publication? What were the major events along the way?  

Barry: Once I began putting all of the characters and events together and sending it out for the first edit, probably a year. When it came back from the initial edit, I sent it off to my friend in Florida for a re-edit.

When her draft came back, my spouse edited it yet again. At that point, the three of us did it two more times until I felt satisfied with the job. All the editing took a good six months.

Norm: What has been the best part about being published?  

Barry: Finally finishing something that I wanted to do. I completed a happy novel. With all of the chaos and hate in the world the last thing that I wanted to do was be another downer.

 I wanted to make people laugh, to take their minds off of politics, hate, and all the negative distractions that are happening in the world.

Norm: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your book? 

Barry: Yes. I made one mistake. I called the gun that was used in the book a .22 and referred to it as a revolver. It was pointed out to me 3 months after publication that a .22 could never be a revolver.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and The Lapone Sisters?

Barry: Barry Wilker and The Lapone Sisters are on Facebook. I also have a website which is still growing, www.TheLaponeSisters.com

Norm: What is next for Barry Wilker?

Barry: I am retired. At 69, I wish I knew what was next. I left my crystal ball at the office.

Norm: As this interview comes to an end,  if you could relive a moment in your life, which moment would you choose and why?

Barry: My entire life. In relationship to time and space our lives are simply a moment. This life has been a very good moment.

Norm: Thanks again and good luck with all of your endeavors

Follow Here To Read Norm's Review of The Lapone Sisters