Interview With Author Larry Ruttman

 

 

1. What inspired you to write this book?

I never thought I would write this book. Why? Like most people I thought as a non-musician it was beyond my reach to do so. Over time it may well have been the power of music that inspired me to think I could. That is consistent with my belief that music is life. So I undertook the task and to my wonderment the inspiration became reality. Of course there are other inspirational forces at play. I write of some of them below. Let me dwell on the main one here, the power of music. Music is a force for good because it brings out the good in people, Generally, that is how music is used. On occasion, its power is used for bad, as the Nazis did. I find musicians to be usually driven by the forces of good. My warm friend, Maestro Benjamin Zander, is a perfect example. This quote of Ben’s truly tells it all:

 

“I have a passionate desire to bring music into the lives of as many people as I can before I die. I also have a passionate desire to bring along as many young people as I possibly can to be fully effective, expressive, and contributing human beings. I believe I have the capacity to do those two things.”

 

2. What exactly is it about — and who is it written for?

It is about music in all its forms, and specifically about classical music and the artists who bring it to us, and what lies deep in their minds about their art. It is written for all people, most especially for those put off by classical music, because knowing these artists as regular folks like they are, may well induce them to listen and love that music. Most will be won over once they do. Those who are   already listeners will enjoy getting to know better the twenty-one world class musicians who are portrayed. All of us are curious about other people, especially gifted people. I think the best way to answer what the book is about is to tell a vignette about my experiences with one of those musicians.

 

As a lay person with no musical training, but a persona that might be described as forward and and having plenty of what the Yiddish word chutzpah, now adopted into English, describes, I believed I could persuade, charm, induce, whatever might be the right word, those artists to tell me thoughts about music they only shared with themselves. Imagine my delight when this came to pass with all of them in one way or another. Take the great composer, John Harbison, who was pleasant and correct in the first hour, then in the second hour spoke personally, revealingly, and privately, later writing me a complimentary letter on how my approach got him to do that.

 

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book?

I hope they will enjoy it. I trust my writing style which is easy to understand and peculiar to me will appeal to readers from late grammar school to late in life. I hope the book will attract people to classical music whose audiences have been diminishing. I am told the book is doing that. The reviews it has drawn, and the prizes it has won, attest to that, and are very gratifying, of course. I hope the book, written in my nineties, will inspire senior seniors and other older folks, that one can accomplish ambitions until the very end. If a regular guy like me can, they can. I think doing so extends life.

 

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design?

I believe a title should tell the reader something about the book. The title came to me as an apt description of my adventure writing this book. To sit down with world class musicians face to face and to induce them to talk about themselves as musicians, yes, but more importantly about their humanity and deep feelings about their art, is intimate.

 

Later, when I chose my publisher, it turned out that the Marketing Manager was a talented young woman named Jori Hanna who doubled as an illustrator. Jori hit the nail on the head in her first try. The cover she drew is the cover you see. Every person who looks at it is immediately impressed. At a glance it tells what the book is about so perfectly. So perfectly that Jori won the coveted Da Vinci prize for the best non-fiction cover, bringing honor to herself and the book! I felt good about my own book. Jori made me feel even better.

 

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!?

Not to run. Anything can happen at any age. I did not undertake a writing career until just short of seventy. So, I went to work, and kept at it. In the quarter century since then my life has changed considerably so that now I am a recognized author, and still working every day on the dissemination of Intimate Conversations, and on my memoir due out in the Spring of 2026. Can it be said that path accounts for reasonably good health, ambition, and survival into my mid-nineties? I’m no scientist, but it seems so to me. I get bored when I let a day go by without doing some work.

 

So fellow writers, don’t be discouraged. Even if it does not lead to your goal, there is a lot to be said for keeping at it. You will make friends. You will be healthier. You will feel satisfied. Your family and friends will admire your effort. It's a no brainer. On your mark, get set, GO!

 

6. What trends in the book world do you see -- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading?

As said above, there seems to be some doubt about the viability of classical music. I am a born optimist. I see classical music lasting far into man’s future. Bach and Beethoven will sound until man’s end. The only thing for certain is that there will never be a future without music. As I said in my afterword to this book, music was here before us and will be here after us. Man’s history on earth will be short compared to the zillion year history of planet Earth. Music began when the earth began, and will exist when the earth disintegrates after its very long existence. That raises the question once again whether music is about life, or is life. Thus viewed, it seems the latter is the answer.

 

If there is any truth in what I am saying, then the constants are life and music, and all else is subject to change, including book publishing. Sure, the trade publishers in Manhattan publish good books, but lots of trash chasing the buck, a habit pervasive in society today. Some day publishing will return to the way it was in the age of Galileo. When that master was under house arrest by the Pope for challenging the belief of the day that the earth not the sun was the center of the solar system, the  legendary, defiant, and brave Dutch publisher, Elsivir,  managed to have smuggled from Italy to Holland the famous treatise expressing Galileo's position, publishing it, and thus combining with the great astronomer to change the course of scientific and world history. What a pair! I believe that in another scenario, it will happen again. Truth is stranger than fiction.

 

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy writing this book?

As I said, no one can l completely answer that question, not Mozart, not Beethoven, not any composer. But by questions not often heard or ever asked, one might gather insights into the creative process. One such question I used often was, “What is music?” Seemingly simple, it elicited a wide variety of answers, usually after a pause to form the reply. That pause told me I had hit the mark. The most memorable answer to that question came from an instrumentalist, not a composer, the great diva, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who with no delay, spontaneously and incredibly delivered the following words:

 

“Life. Music is life. Music is a reflection of who we are as humans. Music tells us things that words can’t, it ignites feeling in us that we didn’t know we had, and it can reach a depth that nothing else can.”

 

I was so thunderstruck by Susan’s reply that I used it on the frontispiece of the book above a famous portrait of Mozart.

 

As this and other answers to this engaging set of questions make clear, I stand with Susan Graham and many others who share this belief.

 

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?

I love this question because it brings out the irreverence in my character. When a few people said to me that they would know my writing anywhere, it confirmed my own belief that I did not write like anybody else. Not that I’m a great writer, far from it. But it is true I have a recognizably unique style. I think it has to do with my manner of speech. Sure, writing has to have some literary quality, but the closer it comes to your own self, the more it will appeal to the no nonsense reader who is more interested in what the author has to say than in solving what it is he is saying. So I disdained all those courses and groups learning to write. I thought an immersion into that school would tamper with my inborn style. So I stuck with that notion, and just started writing. It felt good. It was easy, Usually editing my first draft was enough. Great if you are lazy like me:) People would remark on how they liked what I wrote, and that I must have worked hard to achieve that result. They didn’t believe me when I told them my lazy modus operandi. Wow! The best of all possible worlds!

 

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book?

The main challenge was finding the right publisher. I had some connections to top of the line trade NYC publishers, so I tried that route. I was received respectfully, but the subject met the stone wall in place for books of that genre. A bit discouraging. But as I said elsewhere one should put that aside and keep trying. I remembered that Aiko Onishi, a prominent pianist, teacher, and author who has a chapter in the book, had told me that Neil Rutman (no relation), one of her students who had ascended to be a world class pianist, might be helpful. Neil, who doubles (get this) as professor and boxing coach at The University of Central Arkansas, and triples as an absolutely wonderful guy, sure did help. Neil’s own book had found success with a hybrid publisher. Reading my book, and then writing of it in very extravagant terms, induced Teri Rider, the CEO of hybrid book publisher, Torchflame Books, to invite me on board.

 

Hybrid means both the author and the publisher have a hand in the work and in the expense of publication. I saw that as advantageous because I would continue to have a say until and after publication, whereas once a trade publisher takes over, the author loses control of the book, albeit the publisher pays the freight. That outlook was rewarded because Teri Rider is a highly talented publisher and literary artist who cares more about publishing a good book than about the money to be made. A marriage made in Heaven. I thought so, and still think so, even more so. We became good friends and collaborators. For me it has been a labor of love. If the labor results in a true legacy, how rewarded will I be.

 

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours?

I wrote the book and talked with my interviewees in the manner all of us speak to each other, avoiding technical musical language, which, in any event, is mostly unknown to me. Doing that I was able to get inside their heads, in a manner of speaking.

That is the primary reason why you should purchase the book. There are several others.

Another is to meet the composers and players in their own words. You will find out they are regular folks just like you, and speak as you do. It is said that reading my stories drawn from my interviews is like being in the same room with me and my subject.

 

The quality of those meetings can be seen in the handwritten letters written to me by five of America’s most honored composers appearing in this book, praising me on getting deep into their psyches. Handwritten! Wow! Humbling? Yes. Inspiring? Yes. Best of all, telling me I was onto something in attempting this book.

 

I’m a great believer in the old maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words. You will be happy to view all fifty-five full page illustrations (photos, paintings, drawings, and caricatures) of the interviewee musicians, and famous composers and instrumentalists of today and yesteryear who are their muses.

 

These qualities of which I speak also expand the book into a tool for learning in many courses taught all the way from grade school to advanced college courses.

 

A big reason to buy it is that it is a terrific gift for a person of any age. Children will understand it. Students will understand it. Your grandparents will understand it. You will understand it. When you pick up this book, whether in hard or soft cover, you will note how beautifully it is produced inside and out.

 

I also earnestly hope that my remarks move you to acquire this book for you and yours to find a place in your library for now and future years.

 

About The Author: "American Jews and America’s Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball" (2013), which was chosen the best baseball book in America for 2013 by Sports Collectors Digest, and also for "Intimate Conversations: Face to Face with Matchless Musicians," published in 2024, and also the winner of several prizes. Educated at the University of Massachusetts and Boston College Law School, Larry served in the Korean War. He was elected a Fellow of the august Massachusetts Historical Society. His papers on his books have been collected by the The Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center in collaboration with and at the iconic New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston, Massachusetts. Together they collated, digitized, formatted, indexed, and published his books worldwide online. Larry has lived in Brookline since infancy, and has been married to Lois for 62 years. He is going strong at ninety-four, now within days of reaching 95. In the Spring of 2026 Larry’s memoir is due to be published, entitled "Larry Ruttman:  A Life Lived Backwards: An Existential Triad of Friendship, Maturation, and Inquisitiveness." Larry is amazed that Providence has granted him the privilege to "live his life backwards” in his late-coming and deeply satisfying labors of love. For more info, please see:  www.larryruttman.com

 

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About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 5,400,000 page views. With 5,500+ posts over the past 14 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2026.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum