Ben Masters, "The Flitting"

In this episode Brett sits down with author Ben Masters to discuss his new memoir about losing his father but finding his fathers love for butterflies in the process. We talk dads, kids, discovering our parents and the love of a good Luther Vandross song. 

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Transcript

Brett Benner: 0:00

Hey everybody. It's Brett. And thank you for joining me. On another episode of behind the stack, 80 is non-fiction. Fiction November and I am ready to. To kick it off with author Ben masters and his new book, the flooding. A memoir of fathers, sons, and butterflies. A little bit about Ben. Ben. He is a writer of nonfiction fiction and literary criticism. Um, he lives in north Hampton Shire where he was born in 1986. He. He teaches English at the university of Nottingham and has written for the times, literary. The supplement. Guardian times, New York times. And. The literary review. So enjoy this episode of behind the stack. So Ben masters, I am so happy you're here today coming to us from university. Um, I really appreciate it. I thought, I thought your book was, was just, it was so beautiful. So congratulations. And Ben makes a reference to, uh, Ted Baker shirts. So I broke out the Ted Baker shirts this morning, just for him. And when you read the book, you will find out what that is. So. I guess my first thing for you is I would love to know when you actually started the writing process. Was it before he passed or was it after? And how was that?

Ben Masters: 1:18

Yeah, it was, um, well, first of all, thank you for having me, by the way, and thank you very much for having me on your podcast. It was after. So I had no conception of the book at all during the, so the book takes place roughly sort of the last six months of my dad's life. There's a, there's a few bits that sort of go out of that chronology, but, um, yeah, And I had no conception of the book during that period, at all. And it wasn't until after my father passed away, I started writing a eulogy for his funeral. And I had this idea that I was going to write about butterflies, because butterflies are sort of the central theme of the book, and one of his passions. And so the book is all about me becoming my dad's connection to the outside world when he was too ill to do it, and sort of going out and searching for butterflies to sort of report back to him, and not knowing what I was really doing at all at first. And so I started writing this eulogy about that. Um, and it just got longer and longer and longer until I realized this is like far too long for a eulogy. And I put it to the side. But at that point I realized that there was something there that I wanted to write about and to think more about. There was also, these strange things happened during that sort of last, those last six months of my dad's life, where in retrospect, when I started thinking about them, they seemed like oddly literary phenomenon, um, or phenomena. These strange little sort of experiential rhymes. So, so for instance, I was in my parents garage doing some jobs for my mom and dad was in the hospice. And, I found the wing of a small tortoiseshell butterfly wing. And then like an hour later or two hours later, we got a phone call from the hospice saying it's time, it's time to come in. Your dad's,, he's only got a couple of hours left. And also there was a butterfly called the clouded yellow, which I'd spent a lot of the summer sort of searching for and hadn't managed C. And it was the last one that my dad and I sort of properly spoke about. And he said, so don't give up. And then the day after he passed away, I went outside to get some fresh air, went for a run and I saw one. It was the first one I'd ever seen. And it was little things like that. I looked back, I sort of thought these, these feel almost poetic in some way. Um, and again, I wanted to sort of explore them. So after dad had passed away, I mean, I can't remember exactly. I think it was sort of maybe like half a year or something. I started, Trying to write some of this down and get some of it down. And it sort of, you know, it, it progressed, progressed from there, but it quickly became something, more than just an account of what had happened in those final months. That's when lots of other stuff started to come in and it just, got sort of bigger and bigger and bigger.

Brett Benner: 3:33

Did you find it cathartic after the fact?

Ben Masters: 3:36

I think I must've done, I've been asked similar things about this. Like, you know, is it therapeutic to write? And, and. Guess it was, but I don't know if I was really thinking that at the time of writing it. I'm sure it's played a sort of monumental role in how I've processed my dad's death. I think the thing that I really valued about writing it was it felt like a continuation of a conversation. that otherwise kind of sure have happened. So I felt that, and some of the book is written as if it's sort of a dialogue between dad and I, things that I wish I'd sort of shared or talked about, particularly bits in the book where I'm talking about like the artists and the writers and the musicians that I love and what they mean to me and trying to articulate that to dad in ways that I never. Did or would have done when he was here. So I think that was probably helpful. Another thing that I've often found when I sort of talk about writing the book and it sounds kind of strange And I felt guilty saying it at first is that It was a real pleasure to write the book like it was quite a joyful book to write in many ways. Obviously, there's bits in it that are immensely difficult to write and to read and to think about, but I think it's just the subject matters, it's butterflies, writing about our passions, our relationship. My relationship with my dad was not, I think it's quite easy when you sort of describe this book to almost, for someone to mistake, mistakenly think that, oh, maybe it's a book about sort of a distant father and son who come together. at the last moment over butterflies. And that's not the case. And I hope the book, when people read it, they'll know that that's not the case. We were, we were very close, but there were these sort of core parts of our ways of seeing the world and these things that made up our sort of personal sensibilities. So for dad, the natural world, which I just didn't share and didn't really have much of an interest in beyond that. has a kind of interest in the natural world. And then my love of sort of literature and music and films and on these kinds of things, we never managed to share those things in a satisfactory way. If anything, I completely resisted my dad's interest until those sort of final months. I didn't want to hear about his, Love the natural. And so to be able to write the book and bring those things together, there was a real bittersweet element to it, but there was also a great joy to it in, to elements of it in some ways. So maybe it was cathartic. I don't, I, you know, I, I honestly don't know, but I'm sure I did. I did a lot of sort of, making sense of things through the writing of the book. Cause that's for me, it's part of what writing is. It's kind of making sense of things through the act of writing, which is its own kind of peculiar thinking. Sure.

Brett Benner: 5:53

It's also. really digging in and getting to know your father in these final moments as the person that he was and his interest. And I don't know that a lot of people do that with their parents. You know, we, we view our parents as our parent. And, and I, I don't think it's until later in life that you start to see your parents for the individuals that they really are and their shortcomings and their strengths and their own fears, insecurities, all those things. And that, you know, honestly, they're just human and they're just like anybody else. And I think it also gets, you know, magnified when you become a parent yourself. And I think even the way we tend to parent and the pants, the way we look at our children, I know I found, especially when my kids were young, wow. Okay. So this is what it's like. And this is, you know, in relation to how my parents brought us up. so I thought about that a lot when I was reading your book.

Ben Masters: 6:55

One of the things that this period in time coincides with is, It's the birth of my first son, so he was one during the period that the book describes and I think that's right, he was just about to turn two when dad passed away. And I think that was part of it, like, I noticed that a lot of the things I used to take for granted in my dad, things that he sort of knew, that I, so, particularly to do with the natural world, things that used to kind of irritate me when I was a, like, moody teenager, a moody child, like his ability to name the trees and to point, he'd always be pointing at things. And I find that when you're a child, like if a parent points at something, you want to look at anything but the specific thing that they're, that they're pointing at. Um, he wasn't like, that won't

Brett Benner: 7:35

end, Ben, that'll just get worse as they get older.

Ben Masters: 7:38

But like, some of the things that I sort of took for granted, I always had this sense that like dad had the natural world taken care of for me and my brother, so we didn't have to like think about like naming the birds and the butterflies. And I sort of had the type of intimation that, you know, my son's going to say in the way that you really young children do, they are interested in those things when you're really young. I think you're just, you know, you're naturally curious. And I sort of had this sense that like, I won't be able to answer if he says to me, what's the difference between a swift and a swallow or what trees that I won't know. And I suddenly, it suddenly seemed to be important in some way. And then I started interrogating myself about that. Like, why is it important? Why do I need to know everything? And, and so there was a strange thing about trying to inhabit a Dad's perspective so that I would be able to Deliver on some of the things that he was at least trying to deliver on for me And I think i'm sure that was part of I mean I was kind of the very back of my mind But i'm sure that the fact that I sort of fairly recently become a father while he was You know, going through the final phases of his life. It was a kind of profound convergence of things for me. It was also the lockdown, it was the pandemic, it was COVID, it was 2020. And so that made it very strange and, we had all sorts of rules. I'm sure it was similar over in the States, but we had all sorts of rules about, you know, not being able to, not really meant to leave the house other than for exercise, let alone see family. So my son wasn't able to see my dad and vice versa and other than under very limited circumstances and dad was sort of doubly imprisoned because he was too poorly to leave the house, but also you kind of weren't allowed to leave the house at certain periods of time. So there's all of these sorts of things were going on and it all, I mean, back to your original question, it all goes into this thing of, Realizing the, vulnerability of your parents, it was all magnified by that kind of strange period in, in time that it was.

Brett Benner: 9:23

Yeah, no, my mom was, she was in a retirement community, but she had, she'd started to get dementia and it started falling. They put her in the medical center, part of the, the retirement community. And this lockdown happened and she was isolated completely, which was of course the worst thing for someone who is. having any kind of mental issues. And so she, it was like going off a cliff. She just dropped precipitously. And it was the same thing, you know, she passed not too long after I remember it was, it was, the election week, in America when, when Biden was elected. And so I couldn't, I couldn't go home for the funeral. I similar to your brother, I had to say goodbye to over the phone. And at that point she was far enough progressed that I don't know that she was completely cognizant of what was happening or what was being expressed. But it was all such a surreal, surreal moment. A lot of that came up for me with this as well. because of just that experience and so many people went through similar things. So it's crazy. You describe your dad being like the paragon of, Your parents kind of conformed to what would be typical gender roles your whole life. And then you talk in part about this, about kind of the evolution of style. Can you talk a little bit about that? It becomes a question that comes up a lot in the book in terms of what is it to be a man? What is it to be a father? And, and how has that changed for you now that you have kids in terms of your own? sensibilities.

Ben Masters: 10:52

Sure. Well, I think, I mean, what I describe them as it's like, not so much the paragon of masculinity, but what I thought was the paragon of masculinity. So sure. Growing up, like most kids, I guess you kind of look at your parents and you, you know, other than what you, I don't know, for me, that was, that was most of my sense of like what those particular roles were a mom and a dad and a man and a woman and so on. And like, that's something I sort of reflect on in the book. It's like that sense of it's another thing as you sort of come of age, you kind of realize. the limitations of that. And so, in some ways this is one of the challenging things you're doing when you're doing some kind of life writing. I was trying to inhabit my dad's perspective and I think dad did have quite like a black and white sense of this is, this is, this is what a man is. This is masculinity and, this is a man's role. And, and a lot of it was the kind of stuff that you see reflected back at you in the media. And it's kind of like the dominant narrative, it's the hegemony or whatever you want to call it, you know, that's kind of, kind of what it is. So you see it confirmed everywhere you look. And I think these are the kinds of things I was, like really cognizant of as a new parent, as a father and sort of thinking about, well, how do I want those things to be slightly different? I mean, one reviewer described the book as a sort of a millennial perspective in sort of friction with a sort of a boomers perspective of the world. And I hadn't really thought of it in those terms, but I'm sure there's There's a grain of truth to that. I mean one of the things I do in the book is I try and in some of those sort of conversations, imaginary conversations after he's gone, introduce him to some of the writers who I love who are questioning these kinds of things. So Angela Carter is an example of a writer who's meant a lot to me and I just know my dad wouldn't have got on with in terms of the reading experience of reading Carter. My dad wasn't a particularly literary man for a start, so I think he would have just thought it was all a bit. Pretentious or something. Virginia Woolf as well is another important person who I write about in in these sort of terms. Another part of it was also sort of watching my mum go through those final, those final months and the kind of how untethered she felt and how scared she was for a variety of reasons but partly because she was losing the man who had kind of taken care of a lot of things that she saw as being the things that a man takes care of and um, I try not to be particularly, particularly judgmental about these things in the book. I try and keep, keep as neutral as possible. As sort of possible, but what I do is sort of try to also try and interpret the effects of those things on the dynamic of the family environment and the house. And I'm not saying it's all bad, but I'm sort of fascinated by, I mean, also my dad's relationship with his dad, which was a lot more problematic than my relationship with my dad. And I write about my grandfather, which is one of the most challenging parts of the book to write. And I'm sure my dad had this sense of feeling the need to come up to a certain kind of, you know, Mark or sense of what a man was based on his his father And I don't think these things are in any way sort of exceptional you know, I think everyone experiences these at some, you know as they're as they're growing up that sense of there's some kind of mold or something that's set and if you're not meeting it then this this becomes like anxiety inducing but as you get older, hopefully you learn to let go of of sort of some of these things So I was reflecting on all these things and obviously like it's all bound up with the sense of Dad's own feelings during that time that he was no longer the person that he was. So there's a bit in the book where I describe bathing him towards the end of his, the very end, he was too unwell to do it and he was at home and my son said, well, I'll do it. And I always remember him sort of saying to me, it just sort of almost whispered to me, I'm not the man I used to be just as I was about, I think basically it was about the moment I was about to pull the sheet back and, See him, see him completely. And, it just really struck me that that was on that Even at that stage when he was so ill and so sort of helpless, that there was still that sense of like a kind of pride that he needed me to know that, you know, that somehow this isn't who he was. I mean, it really sort of choked me up, but it was those kinds of things I was, I was, I was sort of trying to reflect on. In the book, and it was sort of a challenging thing to do. Like I said, I try, I try not to be sort of didactic about like my views on sort of gender roles and my family life, my home life and stuff. Like I didn't want to write that sort of book that was trying to do down like his views and No, it doesn't feel like that. And so on. It doesn't. That was what was one of the challenges of the book actually was trying to write it in a way that was, you know, Sort of emotionally true without necessarily having to sort of have something to preach or something, you know, but it

Brett Benner: 15:09

doesn't, it doesn't come off that way at all. It just, that all really resonated with me. You talked a moment about Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf and, and Nabokov plays a big part in this as well. Connecting your love of literature with his love of butterflies. Now, was this, was this a happy accident that you started to find all of these references, because there's, you know, two butterflies within these works. And then you're like, Oh my God, this is crazy. Or how did that come out?

Ben Masters: 15:36

Some of them, I was well, Nabokov, for instance, like it's, you can't miss the butterflies in Nabokov. And I was always sort of thought, well, there's a, there's a happy convergence there, but no, a lot of them I went searching for. So in the same way that when dad was alive, I was looking for, Out in the woods and the meadows and, you know, searching for butterflies. One of the things that I did when I was writing the book was I went searching for them in my natural history, which is in the books, and so that sort of preoccupied me for a while. It was like revisiting authors that have been formative for me, looking for butterflies. I mean, some of them, like, I had a sense of it, you know, so I suddenly, it suddenly dawned on me In Angela Carter's last book, Wise Children, one of the main characters becomes a lepidopterus, but I'd never really thought about it before. So it was like, you know, I knew that was there, and then I went back to it to think, okay, well, what does that mean? And like, you know, what are the butterflies doing in this book and in other books? So there was a sense of sort of like hunting for them. And some of it became, I mean, like, there's a bit about the Sopranos, and I suddenly remembered the episode of the Sopranos when, it's one of the dream sequences, and there's a caterpillar on the back of Ralph Ciprieto's head, in this dream, he's driving the car, and then we cut back to it, It's pupated and it's become a butterfly and things like that, especially going back to this question of sort of thinking about masculinity. I was, you'd have moments like that where you think sort of Eureka, here's the show that I used to watch with my dad. And it's, in some ways all about masculinity. And then here's this butterfly. And what's that do? And, and these were the kinds of connections that were getting me sort of really excited when I was writing the book as, as a way of, you know, bringing together the things that shaped dad, the things that have shaped me and the butterflies was sort of the connector, the great connector that brought all of these things, these things together. But when you start looking, they're everywhere. But suddenly, you know, he'd opened my eyes. Butterflies were everywhere, not just out and about, but in the books that I was reading and then the things I was watching and even the music I was listening to, you know, They're everywhere.

Brett Benner: 17:18

Yeah. It's like that thing where you say, well, I've never seen a Subaru and someone says, this is a Subaru. And then you see them everywhere. There was a line that you say in the book that I just, it really stuck out to me. And it's in reference to, I think your dad trying to get you involved, but you say you can't reverse a lifetime of indifference. And I, that resonated with me when I was thinking about that. Cause I thought you have this moment of, and again, maybe it's because I'm a father. That I viewed it through this lens of your dad wanting to Make this connection with you and and kind of the rebuff and I don't know if I have that now for example, I love to read obviously and my son likes to read my daughter I cannot you know cannot get her to read and it kills my soul But you try to find this way to connect it.

Ben Masters: 18:06

It's kind of it's a central part of the book in some ways How do you explain? You the things that matter to you. Like how do you do that? And that, and that applies to like really sort of like deep philosophical sort of questions, but it also applies to the music that you like and the books that you like and what you like to do with your, like to do with your spare time. And I think this is really, really common. I think we can go with one of two ways or indifference, but, you know, I think most people grow up kind of in some ways resisting the things that their parents are into. And, you know, my dad shared most of his interests with his dad. And then with me, it was more, we shared lots of interests. Sports and things like that, you know, we'd watch that together and watch the rugby together or whatever, go to the games. But there was these things that were like really fundamental to who we are, that we were unable to share for all sorts of different reasons. And for quite different reasons actually, because my dad really did try and want to share his love of the natural world, which wasn't, it wasn't like a hobby. That's just, it's who he was. Grew up in a sort of rural working class upbringing. He was always out walking around and hiking and, participating in country pursuits. And so, you know, that's, that's what he did. And like every day he was walking the dogs and that was a big part of his day and seeing what he could see and following the natural cycles and measuring time in that sort of intuitive, natural way that he had with the seasons and all the various transformations that come with that. Whereas for me, it was much more, I almost didn't want to even try to share my interests until it was too late because they seemed to evoke all sorts of tensions and conflicts in some way. I don't know, like, as someone who, first generation university goer in my family and stuff like that, and you know, going and studying English and Becoming a literary academic and writing books. Like to my dad, that was so alien, not so much my mom. And I write about that in the book about how mom did share some of these sort of passions with me and in a sort of kind of indirect way. But I think dad was almost a little bit suspicious of these things. He just, he was very proud of anything that my brother and I did. But, um, when it came to books and reading, he just would sort of think that I was overthinking it and probably a bit pretentious. You, you,

Brett Benner: 20:08

you, You and your lofty ideas. Yeah. I mean, he was right.

Ben Masters: 20:12

So I write in the book about how he, he's probably the only person to have ever read my PhD, which became a book, but he read it cover to cover and like, you know, it's, it's, I guess it is written for a specialist audience. And, and he asked me all these questions about it that. I just couldn't, and they were really fair questions, but very fundamental questions, like what do you mean by the ethics of literature or something, like that, and I just couldn't even begin to answer and part of that was because of my sense of like, how do I find the common ground to explain this? But really, it was a failing in me, a kind of like complete, I have less so maybe now, but I certainly have always had this sort of feeling of anxiety and discomfort when it comes to trying to explain these things that preoccupy me in my mind and I can sort of articulate them in my head and maybe on the page when I try and write them down. But when I try and explain them to, particularly to sort of loved ones who aren't perhaps tuned into books and the kinds of things I'm thinking about, very niche things, suddenly I just melt. And one thing that the book is doing is In a sort of indirect way, trying to answer some of those questions that my dad was asking me years ago about my PhD, but answering them through sort of demonstration rather than explanation. So it's by the end of the book, I sort of arrived at this conclusion that the butterflies have done that. It's by, it's by This boy being able to share his way of reading the natural world with my way of reading books and films and music and so on. It's the butterflies that did it, they sort of, he, he taught me a new way of reading through that. But over the course of the book I'm able to begin to explain some of those things that were always the kind of slight sort of unease. Between us in some way. I mean, I also discovered that he was writing poetry himself, which becomes a big thing at the end of the book. That, that was quite a transformative moment as well. I

Brett Benner: 21:51

wanted to ask you about that is when you discovered that and how that was for you. It's also, again, it goes back to the surprise of who our parents are, who they are as people, and that we just don't, don't really know. So can you talk about that for a moment?

Ben Masters: 22:05

Yeah. he, he told me this is when he was, he was, he was bedridden and he sort of, he had this little notebook by the side of his bed where he'd been, he'd not written many poems. I think it was like seven or eight poems, very short poems in this notebook. And he gave it to me and basically just sort of said, do you want to look at them? I think part of it was also, he was thinking about his funeral and there was a poem he'd written and he was like, I want, could you read this at my funeral please? And I was like completely stopped in my tracks because. It was this sense of like with the butterflies, but now on my sort of side of the equation, it was like, why didn't we, why didn't I share this? Why didn't you share the poems with me? We could have talked about that, you know, I've, I've spent years teaching English and creative writing. And I say in the book all the while, there was this person at home who I could have and should have been having these conversations with, and we could have been talking about. and so he'd written these poems and, and I write about them in the book and they're, I mean, they're beautiful. It always sounds harsh when I sort of say this, but like in the book, I'm, I'm very conscious of it. I want to, dad would want me to be honest with him. He wouldn't want me to be wishy washy and sort of say, I just love your poems, dad. And like, you know, they're not all great, they're just, you know, from my subjective position, but, but I love them. They mean the world. They are my favorite poems in the whole world, but they, you know, they're poems written by someone who has. In like a really short period of time, he's basically started reading lots of poetry and, always teaching himself, by himself, how to read that poetry, and then how to write his own poetry. And, there's a flair there. I mean, I clearly think he could have, you know, gone on and written other stuff, but, So in the book, I, I try, I try and do a little bit of, like, let's have that conversation and do a little bit of the literary analysis and think about it as, as like a thought experiment. And it's something I do when he's in the hospice because, I can't get hold of him because of the pandemic. We're not allowed to visit and all these kinds of things. So I started reading his poetry and thinking about it. And his poems moved me immensely. And there's one that was written, it's kind of inscribed for my grandchildren. And, I reproduced that in its entirety. So it's short, but I reproduce it in the book. I sort of say, here it is for you, my, your grandchildren and they can read it whenever they want by their grandfather, the published poet. And I really got a kick out of that through this book. That is kind of now a published poem and I felt like it was kind of a returning the gift of what he'd, because what he'd given me with the bus flies and everything was like a complete, like almost a new worldview. Like it was so profound and transformative for me. And I sort of thought, well, the least I can do is now say, you know, you're a, you're a published poet now, dad. and I love reading that poem out of readings and stuff. It's my favorite bit from the book to read, you know, it's not, it's not, they're not even my words. And my dad's words are the best, best part of the book.

Brett Benner: 24:30

I love that. I was going to ask if you still. You know, you, you kept up with this after this has all happened. have you taken your son out?

Ben Masters: 24:38

Yeah. So, yeah, luckily, I mean, I have two sons now, so we have, we've had one after dad passed away, so the eldest is just about to turn six and the youngest is not far off three. And, They are at the sort of age my eldest, like he is at that sort of age. It's, I think it's like a golden window when they kind of do want, or my experience anyways, they do wanna hear the things that you wanna tell'em. Sure. Yeah. and children do just have like an a, a total affinity for the natural world and, and can see the beauty in the wonder in, in it all. And I think aren't troubled by that sense of unknowing. That almost sort of stopped me from ever getting started as, as an older, as an older person. So at the moment, like they're both. kind of interested to hear a little bit about butterflies, but I'm sure that will change. I mean, in the acknowledgements to the book, I say that, I mean, one thing I was conscious of was that, you know, they'll, they'll kind of know my dad, their granddad through the book. And that was another reason for sort of writing the book, although no, my very sort of partial view of, of him, but I sort of end on the note of, but you know, if history has Um, you probably won't want to read the book because you'll have no interest in any kind of literary pursuit in the same way that I had no interest in any kind of like naturalist pursuit because it's what, what your dad does. But, at the moment, yeah, they're kind of, they're kind of, there's a picture that didn't make it into the book of, me out during that time with my son when he was young enough to sort of go in a carries and a carry on the front. And I'm sort of pointing at a butterfly and my wife sort of got this picture of it. I do describe it in the book and say, you know, I've gotten pinned to my front, which is a length that even my dad never, never went to. Pinning you to your front so you can't possibly escape the pointing finger. I like to think that, I mean, it's, it's one of those things that I, you know, I keep, I'm sort of. Deeply obsessed with butterflies now and like my summers are just like full of trying to find time and space to go and search for them and I do have this sense of like I talk so I find myself talking to my dad while i'm doing it sometimes in my head sometimes out loud like it's just Involuntary and that's something he described to me that he did after his dad passed away There was a moment when he sort of said to me that i've always looked up almost and dad was a little bit more religious than I am but I'd look up and and and speak to speak to my dad and tell him what I'd seen and did you just see that sort of thing and he said to me but now I'll be able to do that to you because in those final months that now that I was finally sort of showing an interest he was sort of saying I can I can now tell you What I've seen, I remember thinking at the time, like, he's not going to see, he basically can never leave the house. And I think he knew that, but he's not going to see these things to tell. I mean, I think he was kind of even subconsciously saying to me that I will be able to continue that conversation with him. And so that's something that happens quite a bit. I find it, especially also when I'm sort of looking for something, having no luck, I find myself going, come on, dad, you know, help me out here. I need some, I need some help. I can't see this thing. It's yeah, that's, that's continued. I

Brett Benner: 27:14

think that's really beautiful. I love that you have that. I'm so curious. He's just kind of remarked that in points in the book, obviously part of its proximity, but your brother, does he have an interest in any of this kind of stuff or was he more of an academic or how do you?

Ben Masters: 27:27

So I think my brother's position to, to dad's just as identical to mine. Like we just not interested. So dad was failing on both fronts. Like he was getting like double the frustration. He was like double the frustration and. Disappointment. What am I doing wrong? I describe it in my book. I say something like, Ah, you know, he must have wondered what he'd done to deserve such indoor dwelling offspring. Because I just work outdoors. And my brother, so my brother, similar to me, all the pop culture interests, and, and, he's my older brother, so I was often just following in his footsteps. the things that he was leading me to. He's a big video game fan. Like that's like his absolute passion is computer games. And, to my dad, that's like, you know, that's another planet. I mean, he's more likely to try and pick up a book and, and read some Nabokov than he is to sit down and play on the PlayStation or something. My dad, so yeah, no, so it's kind of like, it's, it's a real, and my mum. I had no interest either in sort of dad's, it's, it's kind of, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to write the book is because this is so central to who dad is and everyone around him is just sort of like, no thanks. And so it became his solitude and the thing that he'd like, you know, some of that is by design. I think, I think one of the, Pleasures of the natural world is being on your own. It's like, it's nice to share it, but like, I, when I go butterfly, I kind of want to be on my own. That's the, kind of the, the part of the point, but, he won't be the first or the last person, you know, who has a passion that ultimately, you know, They don't really share with, share with anyone. You share it with friends. You're more likely to share it with friends, right, than you are with family. Because the friends have, often you're friends because you share interests. But anyway, yeah, he got it in those final months. I was giving it to him sort of two fold, like this, my interest and my, just desperation to learn from him. And, you know, I wanted to know more. Like I had this sense of, I need to sort of, Find this stuff, ask you this stuff now. Obviously I was asking him the stuff that was nothing, you know, much more, like much deeper stuff than about the natural world, about his life and his experiences and So on, but I did also just want to gather all this sort of local knowledge that he'd accrued over years and years of And I think

Brett Benner: 29:39

in

Ben Masters: 29:43

the book I probably make more like, I think dad told me less than he actually does in the book because one of the challenges writing the book is trying to remember exactly what he told me and when he told me. And, you One of my sort of ethics for doing any kind of sort of life writing is if you're going to not make something up But if you're going to give them something to say that isn't quite like something they told you that has to be something that makes Them look good. It can't be something that makes them look bad. So a lot of the information that I learned about butterflies that I need to convey sometimes I just give it to dad in the book, you know in a way that you know He had a lot of other things on his mind at that time. It wasn't just like anything. about butterflies. And yeah, I mean, that's a whole other aspect of the book. It's like the question of like, where does fiction and imagination come into it all? And I sort of reflect on that quite openly in the book about, you know, how you're making these scenes and in a quite novelistic way and making up dialogue. And it's the only way of doing it. The way I sort of square that is, is you're after, you're after a kind of a felt truth, an emotional truth rather than a kind of documentarian kind of truth, which is just impossible when You're living something. It's not like you're making notes on it or something, you know, and

Brett Benner: 30:48

it would be dry. I mean, what, what the book does is it and why the book resonates, I think so deeply is because there isn't a, there is an emotional truth, you know, without knowing even how you got there. I mean, in terms of What you may have changed slightly, what you might have, if there was something embellished, there's almost a theatrical quality to it. The way that you end many sections, the way that you end many chapters, I think it's really effective. I want to be conscious of your time, but I want to talk really quickly about, I loved, loved, loved, When you talk about music, I, I wanted to read something. I got to put my glasses on for this. You're talking about Luther Vandross and, you said it's the feel of Luther's voice that I carry with me rather than the details of individual songs. This applies to the books and writers. I love too. It only takes a day for me to completely forget the specifics of a book, the plot, the characters, even their names. What stays with me instead is a unique feeling of being with. I and then you say it's difficult to describe but I'm sure readers have experienced it that particular intimacy which we might call voice. I, I love this so much. And, and first of all, I have to say yesterday, as I was finishing this, as I was sitting at the car wash, I got into my car after and I, I put on dance with my father, which you talk about and I, Lost it in the car. Like I was sitting there and I had tears streaming down my face. And like, I've listened to that song so much because I was such a Luther Vandross at the time fan and that quote, it's so resonating to me. And it's so right about books and it's so right. About authors. I talk about this a lot where books for me exactly like you said, I can get through something and six months later I, I can't give you specifics of the plot. I remember some characters, but it's the feeling that's evoked while I'm reading the book. It's the connection that I'm feeling with the author who's conveying these things that I think is so incredibly resonant. I think you nailed it on the head.

Ben Masters: 32:53

Thank you. Yeah, it was that that chapter is a chapter called voice and it was originally right at the beginning of the book and I ended up moving it right to the end of it's one of those that's often the way I think like something that feels deeply important. You kind of like it needs to be in a position of prominence, but you don't quite it could almost, you know, you have to figure out where it belongs. And, I was thinking about my dad's voice and it's when it's the moment when he's sort of in the hospice and I can't get hold of him and he's not answering his phone. And We're not allowed in and, and I'm playing some old voicemails back and so then I start reflecting on that, like this question of voice and the voice in his poems, I'm reading his poems at the time and that idea of a conversation, all of these things sort of come together towards the end of the book. And I mean, Luther goes back, he's there at the very beginning of the book because there's this moment before my dad had the terminal di so I haven't said at any point in the conversation, but he had cancer and, and, before he knew he had terminal cancer, but he knew he had cancer in his kidney and he was going to go in for surgery to get the kidney removed. And. The hope was that that would, you know, that would resolve things. Obviously he had a sense, well, it could be more than this. And I remember, and I, and I'm sort of sitting with him in the limb room. And, and I was desperately trying to say to him, I just wanted to, I wanted to say, tell him how I felt about him in like some kind of like clear way. He knew it, like our relationship wasn't one of those ones where there was any. Like, he knew exactly how I felt, and I knew how he felt about me. But I just felt like, I just need to tell him that I love him, and like, that he's been a good dad and all that, just in case something happens in this surgery. I mean, I didn't think it would, but And before I could sort of do it, he started telling me how he'd been listening to Luther and dance with my father, and remembering how when his dad was in the hospice, when he was dying, dad sort of picked him up and started dancing with him. which was kind of funny to me, and like, also really moving, because my granddad was just like, that would never have happened if he wasn't in a position of helplessness, because, you know, he was a hard man, and that he wouldn't have And, it like completely threw me that the, the, I mean I was trying to say this thing to him, and then he tells me that. And so I returned to Luthor at the end thinking about that, because Luther was. He was, Like, particularly my mum's favourite artist, really, but they both loved him and I grew up, he was on In the House all the time and I, I sort of love that because I think it might be a surprise to the reader. Here's this man who, like, my dad is just so never really, he's left England a few times but not really. He's not travelled and he's not interested in any kind of, particularly, like, American culture or anything. You know, he's like, so English rural sort of guy. But he just loves soul music and R& B music. And, I write about that quite a bit in the book. And Luther was one of his, and it just seems like this kind of like odd combination, which I found like sort of fascinating and thinking, thinking about that.

Brett Benner: 35:16

Yeah. Well, he's looking for butterflies with the power of love on his earbuds. Yeah,

Ben Masters: 35:20

seriously. The Temptations were his favorite group. And like I say, Luther was more my mum's, but like, he would listen to Luther. Dance With My Father actually is not my I'm not a massive fan of, like, it has huge meaning for me now and I hear it and it wells me up because I think of dad. But I always found it as one of his sort of, just kind of like lacrimosa and like a bit corny or something, but like, uh,

Brett Benner: 35:40

I don't disagree. I don't disagree with you.

Ben Masters: 35:42

Like sort of the earlier sort of stuff, like the eight, like sort of the 80s stuff, really, which I remember from childhood, as soon as I hear it, it's like, it's the sound of home, which is really strange when you're from middle England. Like it's like the Luther Vandross is the sound, the sound of home in some way, but it just is. And there's sort of like comfort in his voice. And I think that is true of the stuff you read, the writers that you, not comfort necessarily, but the writers that you love. It's like a social act when you read. And so it's that sort of communion with the author, that goes so far beyond like, what's the story about and what happens to the characters. And, and, I genuinely do forget. I tend to forget all that stuff really, really quickly. I just have a bad memory, but, um, but it's the voice that stays with you. I think.

Brett Benner: 36:22

Yeah. Don't, I don't disagree. So the last thing I wanted to ask you is you talk about in this, That in writing this and getting this out, it's, you know, you talked about the wellspring of feeling that you're writing was lacking. That was now suddenly became available to you. Have, have you found now subsequently your writing has changed or there is more of that availability to you now?

Ben Masters: 36:43

It's a good question. I've not done much, right? I'm, I'm, I am working on the book, which I'm sort of tired of. Quite tight lipped about, but it is another creative nonfiction. And it's another kind of experiment with memoir, but I've been thinking about it and planning, and it is a book that involves a lot of research. So I've kind of been doing that really. So I haven't done loads of writing since I finished writing this book. I think one of the things that, one of the things that I really grappled with in the book was the almost kind of sense of guilt that I was basically my dad's death. I don't know if that makes sense, I don't know if I put it well, but suddenly I had something that felt really, really pressing to write about and was just so emotionally provocative and meaningful. But it's all predicated on my dad dying. And I sort of say in the book, I give up this book in a heartbeat to just have him here still. I also know that my dad would sort of say that I can hear his voice in my head saying at least. But something bloody good has come of this, you know, and that's how, what he would say. And obviously he is the implied reader, like he is the person that this book is for. And finally, that sort of communion over books and through books. Because of the butterflies and how that brings it all, you know, would have brought him in and And that was the really bittersweet thing about writing the book was or the most bittersweet thing was knowing that he wouldn't read it When really he's the only person I you know, he's the person I really really need to read this to read this book But in terms of like so how that's affected like my writing since I don't know But I did reflect on that a lot, how I'd spent basically sort of 10 years working on books and novels, most of which haven't gone anywhere. And I was sort of looking back and just thinking, this feels different. Writing, it's more that it felt different. To write this book, there was just an urgency and it was just there at my fingertips because of the intimacy of it, I guess.

Brett Benner: 38:30

Yeah. And it's got to feel good. Also, now you've had it done. You've published something. You know what I mean? It says something about. Progress. It says something like it's done. So I would think that adds talked earlier about imposter syndrome. Well, you're, you're a published author now. And so I don't know. I think that'll be interesting going forward.

Ben Masters: 38:49

I mean, I had, I had already published, I had published a book, I published a novel. So my background was, so I'd written a novel, but that was like, 12 years ago and I did think I was cooked if I'm being honest, I was very young. I was very young when I published it, but I wasn't getting very far. and I've written about. By my estimation, about four novels in the interim period, that obviously were not published. Most of them were never submitted. You know, I only submitted one to a publisher, but, it was a strange, strange time. And, I think dad sort of died knowing that that was in my sort of personal, professional life. My great frustration was this sense of, I'm not sure I'm ever going to get published again. And I would talk to him about that when we were having conversations about other things. And I do sometimes wonder, I wonder if he sort of thought, like, he never said anything, but I wonder if he thought, well, one day you might write about this. I certainly hadn't thought it, it never came up. I like to think that, you know, that he would have got a sort of a kick out of the fact that there was another book and him and butterflies and the natural world and everything are kind of I

Brett Benner: 39:46

think you would have loved it. I'm sure you would have absolutely got a kick out of it. Well, Ben, this is fantastic. Thank you so much. I think it's just an incredible book. And for, for all of you watching or listening, you can go to my bookshop. org page. You can get the book there or wherever you get your books by independent if you can, but, congratulations, it's, it's really fantastic and thanks for being here.

Ben Masters: 40:08

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks bro.