Who’s the Real Larry Miller?

Larry Miller is a fairly common name. In the past, the other Larry Millers were people who had been arrested multiple times or skipped out on their bills. A simple display of identification helped my husband clear up the mistake.

The publication of our novel, however, has proven to be more complicated.

In February, before the official launch of Standing Up: Tales of Struggle, a friend emailed to say she’d looked for the book online and found it on a site called Google Books. They had a picture of the cover, a description of the theme, a quote from me with a photo (albeit from 2015), and a quote from Larry – with a photo of Larry Miller, American comedian. He’s the guy who played the wildly over-protective dad in Ten Things I Hate About You.

Once my friend tipped me off, I searched for contact information for the Google Book team and sent them the following email:

In its description of our novel, Standing Up: Tales of Struggle, Google e-books has a photo of the American comedian, Larry Miller, as the co-author. While my husband, Larry F. Miller of Milwaukee, WI, is a very funny guy, he is not known as an American comedian. We would hate to think that the other Larry Miller’s wife, thinks he has been living a double life, married to me for 45 years as well as to her for nearly 30.

Someone got back to me promptly and informed me they received this information from a third party contributor, whose email they included. It took a while but eventually the incorrect photo was taken down. 

Recently we heard about another reader who looked for our novel on bookshop.org. Once again, the cover and description were correct, as was the biographical information for me. For Larry, however, this is what it said:

Larry Miller was appointed the first chairman of the Jordan Brand Advisory Board in January 2019. Under his leadership, Jordan Brand has grown from a $200-million basketball-shoe company to a $4-billion athletic footwear and apparel firm. Miller helped found the Jordan Brand at Nike in 1999 before becoming president of the Portland Trailblazers from 2007 to 2012, after which he returned to Jordan Brand. Miller graduated with honors from Temple University in 1980 and earned an MBA from LaSalle University. He has served on the boards of directors of Self Enhancement, Inc. A passionate advocate for education and mentorship, he’s taken leadership roles with the Urban League and Junior Achievement in the past. Born in Philadelphia, he lives in Portland, OR.

​The friend who passed this information on to us works with Larry on the journal Rethinking Schools. He expressed his surprise that Larry was living a double life, and his hope that Larry’s contribution to the organization would now grow substantially.

This time, I did not reach out for a correction, in hopes that the Jordan-Brand-Larry-Miller would take an interest in the book he’d supposedly co-authored. Alas, he apparently has a band of publicists who got wind of the error and swiftly had it corrected.

These other Larry Miller’s may be stand-up guys. Trust me, though: my husband, Larry F. Miller, is the one and only co-author of Standing Up: Tales of Struggle. He’s an amazing father, husband, friend and co-conspirator, a long-time union activist and educator. Kids adore him. So do dogs. People love to see movies with him to hear his laugh. It’s hard to go places in Milwaukee without running into a former student who’ll say, “Hey, Miller, so great to see you. Best teacher I ever had.”

Do come to an in-person or virtual book event and meet him for yourself.