Behind The Stack

Syed M Masood, The Last Man In Paradise

• Brett Benner • Season 2 • Episode 26

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In this episode Brett sits down with author Syed M. Masood to discuss his new book, The Last Man In Paradise. They talk about religious conservatism in current times, blending comedy and tragedy in writing, and take a nostalgic walk through sitcoms. 


Syed's website:

https://www.syed-masood.com/

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Brett Benner:

Hello everybody and welcome or welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack with me, Brett Benner, your host. I'm excited you're here. How is everybody this week? What are we all watching? Has everybody enjoying the, new season of the White Lotus? I'm, I'm, I'm not a hundred percent convinced yet, although I do think it's the most beautiful location they've been in. Um, but I'm kind of, just holding out and we'll see. I also started, Daredevil. I loved the original Daredevil, so I have started that as well. And we'll see. I'm kind of interested, we're gonna see where it goes. My biggest problem is I have a hard time staying interested in stuff. I get bored really quick. So interestingly, not with books, but with television. I absolutely do. A couple of books coming out today along with today's guest. The two others I wanted to mention. First is Marcy Dermansky's Hot Air, which is out today, which looks really fun. And then the other is, stop Me if you've heard this one by Kristen Anette, um, which is about a young woman who is a clown for her profession and, her personal life and trying to get it together. Kristen will also be on the podcast next week talking about the book, but it's really, really fun and, she's a delight now onto today. And the last book that's coming out today that I was gonna talk about and we're gonna spend the next half hour discussing is The Last Man in Paradise by Syed Masood I was really excited for this interview because I loved Syed's previous book, the Bad Muslim Discount so much. So I was thrilled that he had a new book on and I got the chance to sit down and talk with him A little bit about Syed. He grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, a first generation immigrant twice over. He's been a citizen of three different countries and nine different cities. He's the author of The Bad Muslim Discount and IndieBound Bestseller and two Ya novels, more than just a Pretty Face and Sway with me. He currently lives in Canada with his wife and two children, so enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack. I'm really thrilled to have Syed Masood on the show today. First of all, I have to tell you that. I was late to the game, but I read Bad Muslim Discount last year and I loved it so much and I, I remember when I read it, I was like, I really wanna, I really wanna talk to this guy. And so when I saw that you had a new book coming out, which is the Last Man in Paradise, I was so, so, so excited. And I actually just posted something on my Instagram page about this the other day when I had finished it and I had so many people messaging me saying, oh, I didn't even know this is coming out yet. I'm so excited. So congratulations and welcome.

Syed M Masood:

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Brett Benner:

By the way, when I was googling you, did you know the first thing that came up besides your picture is a character from the show, EastEnders?

Syed M Masood:

Yes, I've seen that. I've seen that.

Brett Benner:

Basically he's a gay Muslim I went through the whole storyline on Wikipedia. I was like, this is so fascinating. And then I had a, and then I had a moment was like, well, this is an interesting launch off of a book idea. So we were talking before we started about, you know, your kind of nomadic existence, which you've always had that like you grew up, moving around, correct?

Syed M Masood:

Yeah. I mean, you know, my, dad came to the States for his MBA we went to Texas. And then he decided to go back to Pakistan, and then he decided to move to Canada and then back to the States. And then for the last few years I've been traveling with my family. I've been dragging them around. So we've had some incredible experiences. We've gone to ASINs to. Cairo Kuala Lumpur Indonesia. We've been there. We went to Pakistan for a while. That was probably a mistake. We traveled for three years. I take my wife to Pakistan and she's like, I think I want to go home. But yeah. So right now we're in Canada, which I you know, went to university here. I, I love this place. I'm glad to be back for a while.

Brett Benner:

Yeah, I love Canada as well. Is it and your kids are adaptable? They've done well.

Syed M Masood:

Yes. They are getting to that stage where I'm starting to think we should probably. You know find, find some roots and have them have a routine and regular friends to go to school with. Yeah, so we're thinking about, you know, finding a place long term, but but yeah, they've been, they've had a, they've had a blast, you know and they're, they've gotten very uSyed to travel. It's surprising how adaptable kids are, but I, I think they've gotten to the point where now we're gonna. We're gonna, we're talking about it. We're thinking about it.

Brett Benner:

They're adaptable until they're not. Now do you speak other languages?

Syed M Masood:

Only Urdu'cause I grew up with it. Yeah.

Brett Benner:

Okay.

Syed M Masood:

And I can, I can read Arabic, but I can't, well, that's not true. I uSyed to be able to read Arabic, but I can't understand it because they taught me the phonics. So I could do the religious, you know, rituals and stuff. The prayers.

Brett Benner:

And how about, how about your wife? Same. Cool. Did you meet at university?

Syed M Masood:

No, it was an arranged marriage. Wow. Yeah.

Brett Benner:

And it worked out.

Syed M Masood:

Yeah. No, that was that was one of the, that's one of the big fears when you're growing up Pakistanian in a traditional Muslim household, you know, you're, you're gonna have an arranged marriage and you kind of hope it works out. So, thankfully it did. Yeah, she, she is actually, her family is from, her dad's from India. My family's from Pakistan, so we had moved, my family had moved from India to Pakistan when the separation of the two countries happened. Yeah. So so we have a lot of cultural commonalities that way and yeah.

Brett Benner:

That's amazing., I know you went to William and Mary School of Law, And you were at University of Toronto for English, what led you into writing or what led you into one or the other? Was, was the idea like, okay, I'm gonna be a lawyer to support my, my writing, or did you know you wanted to be a writer or how did that kind of come about?

Syed M Masood:

Oh, well, I mean, I've been writing stories since I was a kid and I've always wanted to be a writer as far as back as I can remember really. I went to University of Toronto for, I actually originally got into the neuroscience program, which was not gonna happen, but as with a lot of people from my background, I was being pushed into the sciences. And so going into English was a. You know, was a big change. But I loved it so much. I, I could not do it. And then you know the law, I sort of fell into it after basically nine, 11 things got so weird. Mm-hmm. And, and, and Strange. And then I sort of put a little bit of that into bad Muslim you know but it felt like the call of the times and then. After that yeah, it, it being a writer was a dream that I never thought would actually come true. And I was just writing for myself and then one day I entered a contest and I ended up getting in and it sort of took a life of its own from there, so.

Brett Benner:

Wow. That is so cool. I had another writer on who was also a lawyer, or formerly a lawyer'cause she stopped. But, so I have to ask you that same question is, did you find that your time as a lawyer had influence on your writing?

Syed M Masood:

It changes the way you write a little bit. Actually, I think being a writer really hurts you as a law student. Mm-hmm. You know, you, you're, you're taught to do certain things like not repeat words in a sentence or in a paragraph, and you're trying to be more artistic and as a when you're doing legal writing as a very different exercise. So what I find is there's a lot more freedom in being a creative writer, so it's, it's. A lot of fun to be doing, constrained writing at one point in your day, and then later you can just sort of unleash and do what you want to do. So yeah, I, it, it, I don't think it influences it. I think it makes you well, I suppose it does influence it. It makes you more cognizant of you know, are you getting to the point soon enough? Because just like the audience, the judges isn't gonna sit around waiting for you to get to it, you know? So yeah, be more aware of your tempo. It's brevity. Yes. It's, so, it's

Brett Benner:

fascinating because it's almost like between the two, you're using two different parts of your brain.

Syed M Masood:

Well, yeah, I mean, I was, I was gonna say, gravity is not my strong suit, so it probably helped me a little bit to, to have to, you know, conform to this different way of doing things.

Brett Benner:

God, I think I probably should have been a lawyer. I would've, I would've been helped as well. All right, so you, you have your two, what we'll say adult novels for lack of a better thing. And then you had two, which I didn't even know that you had these two works of, of young adult fiction and I, I'd seen in a previous interview, and I loved, and I wanted, if you could just talk about this, do you explain where, how you term the two genres?

Syed M Masood:

Yeah. Yeah. No, I always say that, you know, adult fiction is the fiction of. Sort of despair. Like, you know, I, I've arrived at some point in my life and I don't like where I am and how did I get here and why did I get here and how do I get out if I can, you know? And then young adult fiction is the fiction of hope and it's mm-hmm becoming, of trying to do things for the first time. So they're very different genres. I love both. My young adult novels I had a lot of fun with. It's just a very different audience. You have to write differently for them. But you know, there's a, there's pros and cons. I sort of go back and forth between the two genres. But yeah, I I think I. There's a lot to be said about young adult fiction and there's some great authors working in it right now. So

Brett Benner:

there's so many. I agree with you and I and I think it's come so far. Like I would, you know, when I grew up young adult fiction was the Hardy Boys

Syed M Masood:

I read like 60 of those.

Brett Benner:

Yeah. Remember that would be like the big Christmas gift.'cause I get like three Hardy Boy books that and possibly like a Choose Your Own adventure and, and and CS Lewis. That was it from, for my growing up. But now, I mean, the scope is so incredibly wide and quite frankly, it, they're so sophisticated. Like the line is, is is tenuous, I feel between young adult and adult fiction. It's, it's so narrow. So it's really cool. Alright, so do you have an elevator pitch for your last man in Paradise?

Syed M Masood:

For the last man, it is basically a, a young man growing up in small town, California. Who grows up with who's born into a really religious family, his fathers and Imam which is like a Muslim versions of a priest. And they want him to be religious, or at least his father wants him to be religious. And he wants him to follow in his footsteps and become a teacher like he is. This young man is not at all religiously inclined and that's understanding it probably a little bit rebellious. So he ends up very very much pissing off his father and essentially gets exiled to Egypt so he can go to school there. At a very famous university Azer, which is in Cairo. And he sort of escapes from Egypt, goes to England and becomes an actor. Doesn't tell his family though. He probably thinks he's become this mom whereas he's really an actor and then there's gonna be a someone in the family that his grandfather about to pass away. So he has to come back to you know, reading California again for the first time in a decade or so. And he now, he has to pretend to be an imam when he's not one. And that's where the hi ensue. So,

Brett Benner:

What, what, what was the genesis for this book for you? What was the idea that started it?

Syed M Masood:

Oh, I'm gonna get in trouble for answering this question. This is the kind of thing that gets me into trouble.

Brett Benner:

I could edit anything out.

Syed M Masood:

Oh, no, it's, it's just, you know, to be completely honest, it was listening to these, all religions are conservative, in my opinion. By their nature, they're conservative and, and Islam is uniquely conservative because. It, it uniquely says not only, not only you know, is this the word of God, but it's the last word of God and it's never gonna change, and it's for all time, and we have all the answers, right? And so that leads to some really interesting situations. So what inspired this was just listening to certain imams on online, on the internet who are very famous. Just answer questions from people who have. You know, questions like or, or situations like, is temporary marriage valid because you can't date people, but can you marry them for like a few weeks and then see if it works out if mon didn't get a divorce? You know, and so there are these imams who have to deal with these questions online. And I remember watching a video where this morning imam was complaining about this guy who would just go, you know to these poor countries and just marry women one after another, after another, and just divorce them and get married again. Because you can get married through four times. But that's not, that's not an upper limit. Four is what you can have at one time, so wise as a man. So that's what I was like, wow, dude. There's some, there's a, there's a lot of potential for humor there because there's so many, you know so many different ways people deal with these rules that they're born into. And don't want to leave necessarily because, well, I mean. For one thing, there are no Islamic states left anymore, but in an Islamic state, you know, the, the penalty for aposty is death. So that's a pretty big disincentive for leaving. What happens more realistically is just being ostracized by the family. No one speaks to you. You come. You lose a lot when you become an ex-Muslim. So a lot of people have to sort of find ways to navigate their lives. And so that, I know it sounds grim, but it also creates opportunities for comedy. And that's what I always look for. I, I, I look for things that are funny but in a sad way. Mm-hmm. That's where a lot of my humor comes from. So bad Muslims like that. This book is like that. And I taught, you know, it would be cool to put some of these situations which Western readers don't always get to hear about in a, in a novel and, and sort of explore them.

Brett Benner:

Yeah, it's so interesting because first of all, you've completely, and what you said earlier, in terms of the wives, you've completely described where you got the character of Tiger from who is the uncle who, who is one of my favorite characters, and he's so funny. But yeah, it's such an interesting thing because I said, you know, you do a, a great job of showing that why religion can be pure. Its, its followers might not necessarily be, and, and also the hypocrisy within. It, and it's not even restricted to the Muslim community. I find it, you know, I grew up in a very conservative WASP household. I went to church camp every year. But it was also such a strange thing for me because I always found the people who were the most kind of derelicts. We're all under these trappings and they were also the most judgmental of other people, which was always so fascinating as well. Spirituality and religion are two very different things to me, and that's something too that comes up in this book. But also the idea that you present of like. What is a good person and what good deeds and all of those things. And you paint things with a very gray stripe, should I say? But how do you now as someone who's Muslim, how do you. Rectify religious dogma with current life as it is.

Syed M Masood:

Right. And that's the, that's the question of the book, right? I mean, yeah, I think it's I, I think everyone has to find their own answers to that. You know, I, I don't know. I, I think it was, this was actually covered in bad Muslim, I think, but there's a, there's a line in Bad Muslim where they talk about. The two love interests are talking and talk about how, you know, when you come to the West, especially as a Muslim, you, you sort of put yourself together like a Frankenstein monster, you know, and, and you can, since you've put yourself together, there's no one quite like you because you've taken some parts of this life and some part of parts of that life, a little bit west, a little bit Islam or what have you. So. You know, I think it's a question that is just not limited to Islam, though. I think it's every religious Yeah. That because for all their differences, religions are very much alike, you know, in, in many ways. And so I, I'll often hear from people who are from different religious backgrounds, we'll say, yeah, I totally get this. You know yeah, a hundred percent specific, the specific dogma will be different, but the issues are the same. So I think it's a, it is a very human experience of just trying to sort of. Reconcile your own conscience and your own worldview with the culture and the fate that you've inherited.

Brett Benner:

Yeah. You see a great, I love this line in the book. Talking he meaning Azan, the, the main character is talking to his grandfather or his baba. And he says there's a difference between science and faith. And Baba says, no, there isn't Baba countered. They're the same thing. Faith is magic before it is explained and once it's explained, we call it science. And I loved, and I loved that so much though, but, I agree with you. Like to, like it was, the whole thing with fundamentalism is fundamentalism. We're, we're looking at it in the United States now, this Christian nationalism and this fundamentalism it is the same thing. And, so I do think, like you said, there's a universality behind all of this. There's also, you know, there's a moment in the book that is, it's so shocking where, his father whips him with a belt. And it's brutal. And it's one of, it's, it's so interesting because you do what you say, which is your books are so funny, and then you'll throw in this moment that's so real and so harsh that it's kind of like getting cold water thrown in your face. But at the same time, I feel like, and you could tell me, putting that in there was important to drive so much of both of who these, this father son relationship and all of it.

Syed M Masood:

Right. I mean, you know, there has to be real consequence. I mean, it's one thing to talk about the doctrine and, and, and the, it's not even Islam really, that that's just cultural. And, and so, you know it's one thing to talk about it in the abstract and then one, when something like that happens, it becomes real, right? And, and then the consequences are real. And so, you know, one of the moments that surpriSyed me in the book as I was writing it was, you know, when Azan set starts reflecting on what it means. That his life as a mission Pakistan kid in America is so different from the girl that he's in love with. Jewish American. And, you know, they're, they live like in the same neighborhood. They go to the same school, you know, and, and, and this, he's thinking this has these raw from having been whipped, and well actually in, in that particular case, it is the religion.'cause that's the, punishment for drinking alcohol. But parents aren't suppoSyed to carry that out. That's suppoSyed to be the state. And like I said before, there are no Muslim states left. So anyway at that moment he thinks, but I've always been told this is good, right? I mean, this is the melting pot. This is, this is multiculturalism, isn't it? But why do I hate it now? You know? And, and so this is one of those books I. And one of those moments that surpriSyed me as to make an admission that's unsurprising to anyone. Know, as you believe in these things, and sometimes you know, these moments in, in fiction or in real life happen, and you're like, well, but that's not good. Even though it, it sort of matches my philosophy. Like I, I, I, I'm formal de culturism, but. What do I say about this? You know, yeah, it causes harm. What do I do? So that was a real moment for me as a writer.

Brett Benner:

It also, just thinking about this, it reminds me of the question that people of faith have all the time in terms of like. Why do bad things happen to good people or people praying to say why did my children, you know, develop cancer and die and, well, it's God's will. And there's just a tremendous amount of, again, it goes back to faith, I guess, of I, I'm going to accept that versus the other argument of I have a hard time accepting that a God, a benevolent God would do something like this if he's really, I don't know. So it's that weird thing.. I know that you're really into sitcoms and so I'm curious what. What do you watch, and this is a larger conversation, but I just am curious what, what do you love sitcom wise?

Syed M Masood:

Oh I mean, we talked about scrubs'cause you worked on it. And one of my all time favorites you know, I, I I love everybody Loves Raymond. I thought that was fantastic. I love Ray Romano as a, as a writer because, you know one, some of the best writing advice I ever got was through him, and I've talked about this before. But essentially, you know, he someone, one of his cast members was talking about how. You know, great was that they were able to make this social point that they wanted to make. And, you know, Ray Said but you have to earn it with the comedy, you know? And, and that's the thing you have to earn. The, and that I find is, is, you know, there's a big conversation in our culture right now about woke entertainment, you know, and mm-hmm. What it means to be woke and, and what, I think if people would just follow, Ray's advice, you know, you'd be fine because. If you earn the right to say what you want to say, it won't come across as preachy. I mean, you know, star Trek was being woke, like, you know, right. I mean, no one called it that because they earned it with the, with the, the suspense and the atmosphere and all, and all that. So I think it's just a matter of earning it. It's when, a writer wants to say something that doesn't necessarily flow from the narrative and it doesn't feel earned. That we get into trouble. And that sort of covered in this book a little bit.'cause I, I poke fun at myself for the bad Muslim where, you know in the end of bad Muslim, I wanted to say something and I sort of had to push it out there. And then later I was like, you know, I'm not sure if I earned that. I'm, I'm not sure I earned that particular scene. You know, and so one of the characters in this book calls out. She's a, she's a reviewer for fiction. And she's like, that was bad. That was bad writing. So I, I think it's just yeah, I think as long as, as long as we earn our our stripes like Ray Roman does, we are, we're, we're Okay. Aside from that, you know, obviously the classic Seinfeld arrested Development also. Oh, so good. It's a big name, but God, I love that show. Oh my god.

Brett Benner:

And you know what, it's so funny'cause I just went back and I started watching some of it again and it completely holds up. I mean, it's so good. And like all of that, that cast was so incredible.

Syed M Masood:

You know it was, it was so funny.

Brett Benner:

Yes. No, it is. It was great. But I ask, I asked all this about the the sitcoms, and it makes total sense to me because when I'm looking at the construction of your book, it sometimes feels like a really smart single camera comedy to me. Even the way you've, like, I kept thinking you could literally be in a writer's room for a comedy because of two reasons. The book is almost structured into many vignettes that have an A, b, and C storyline. You have a great love interest that's going on this, you know, relationship that. He's going home back to his family, he's left this girl behind. Will this thing get rekindled? It's so fantastic. You also, and you did this in Muslim too, you create such likable characters, I mean, incredibly likable that even when they're doing something that's despicable, you still are with them. And that's a real testament to your writing. Is there a particular character in this one that you loved writing so much that you couldn't wait to get back to?

Syed M Masood:

Oh, yeah. I mean, the grandfather, the Baba Charact was hilarious. I mean, you know, I mean, and, and I get he, this is the kind of stuff like I get a lot of I get a lot of positive feedback and then I get some people who get very upset with me because religious people. Not always known for their sense of humor. And so, you know, they, they don't always like, what the way I do things, but Baba character is so outrageous, you know but so flawed and human at the same time. Mm-hmm. That I had so much fun with him. And, and it was really sad because he wasn't in it, like there were only a few scenes with him in it, but he is in some ways the, the catalyst for the story to happen. And he sort of orchestrates this and it obviously goes completely sideways on him. But but yeah, the scene with him, with Madison and Azan in the hospital where he wants to freeze his brain because he's just realized, oh, I don't want to die. Turns out,

Brett Benner:

yeah.

Syed M Masood:

Is yeah.

Brett Benner:

And for our listeners or viewers Madison is the previous girlfriend to Azan. So when you started to put this together and you talked about the inspiration for it, did you do it with the idea of like, okay, I'm gonna take this kid or this young man and do this? Or did you start with somebody different and then start to form around this idea? How did it, how did it come together for you? I.

Syed M Masood:

Yeah, no, I mean you know for me it, it starts with Stephen King's book on writing is, is really helpful for me. So essentially he says, think of a scenario and sort of let your characters in the story sort of gather around this one scenario or scene. And the scene that came to my head for some reason was a young man, like putting on a fake beard, like to become D Imam. And, and so then that's like I came up with the idea of the fake Im mom and I was like, oh, this could really be something. And then there was a bunch of research because I wanted all the religious stuff in the book to be accurate, you know? And, and even though I have grown up with the religion you know I. What I was taught is not always accurate, so I have to, I have to make sure that's accurate. It was around the idea of, you know, someone acting someone putting on a show to become this fake imam and, and that sort of. Morphed into him being an actor which was not the original idea but it seemed to fit really well. It also gave me an excuse to use Shakespeare and Chakov and stuff, and that was so, you know, that's always fine when you can do that. And so, yeah, that, that sort of, it started around Azan though because. It was such a compelling image you know, because it's literally putting on, we all sort of do this to a certain extent, right? We all put on masks when we go out into public and we deal with different types of people, different crowds of people with our family. We are one way with our partners. We are one way with you know, and it, it's not even being depleted being dishonest is, is really just that's what people need from you. Sometimes, you know, different people need you to be different things. And this is, it's a form of

Brett Benner:

code switching,

Syed M Masood:

right? Exactly. And this is just taking that to like the nth level where, where that's what the absurdity in the comedy comes in.

Brett Benner:

it's so incredibly well done. And then you also manage to like, and again, I haven't read your young adult books, but I'm assuming that they deal high romance because many of them do. But your whole romantic side of this is so good. And then another thing that you are such. An incredible writer of, and this is again, goes back to like the idea of sitcoms is your dialogue. It is crackling. It is so funny. It is razor sharp. It is back and forth. I mean, I found myself laughing out loud, which only makes them. Between the two of them. So much more charming. And you're like, my God, I feel like I'm in one of those, you know, working title films from like the nineties, like four Weddings in a Funeral in Bridger Jones Diary. It's just, it's, it's, it's so fantastic. Now were you raised? Was your, was your family very conservative?

Syed M Masood:

No. They became conservative. So there's this phenomenon that happens at this closing of the ranks when people move from Muslim countries, especially to the west. Because all of a sudden you, you've, you've never been a minority and you're in a minority now, you know? Yeah. And so there's this sort of I, I don't want to use this phrase, but I will because I can't think of anything better. There's sort of this like self herding into like little pens. And so we're like closing ranks, like, we're like huddled together for like, we're like sheep huddled together for warmth or something, you know? I don't even know do that, but I'm assuming they do. You know, so, but my kids are watching a documentary. I forget what the animal was. Maybe it was penguins. That makes more sense anyway. So my point is that we close ranks, we become more conservative and I also feel like we get trapped in, in time because we sort of assume that the world we left behind is, is always gonna be that way. And it's really shocking when we go back and it's like, oh, the world has moved on and things have changed. You know, Pakistan now is not Pakistan 20 years ago. Obviously why would it. Be. But you know, when you leave a place that's the frozen fragment you carry with you. And so they bring that here. And then they become more religious. Their friends are all in the same community because they speak the same language and it sort of just sort of spirals. And so my, my family became more conservative over time. They were much more liberal in Pakistan, ironically enough, so, yeah.

Brett Benner:

Interesting, interesting. And it's funny'cause I was thinking there's, you addresSyed this passage in the book, a little about that, a little bit in the book in terms of, the, the tenuous relationship between conservatives and liberals and, and, and also being Pakistani or Muslim in this community. But it's also, I sometimes feel like it's just what happens is people get older or sometimes they, they just tend to become more conservative. But it's also, we're watching it happen on a grand scale right now in the US in this kind of insane way. This, you know, hearkening back to 1950s where, you know, women stayed at home and made babies, and there was a white picket fence, and, and everyone knew their place and everyone you know.

Syed M Masood:

Yeah. It's, it reminds me of that. Another great sitcom. This is an all time classic, but oh, what show was Archie Bunker on? Oh, all in the Family. All in the Family. God, I, I keep thinking of the title song, you know?

Brett Benner:

And all in the family would never get green lit now. Like you could never get that on the air. Like everything that happened. And then the Jeffersons, the spinoff, all of these things that Norman Lear was doing at the time any of those shows never would've gotten past development.

Syed M Masood:

No, that's true. And, and or in publishing, got in published, but you know, I'm, I'm just thinking about the fact that. Even back then there was this nostalgia of like, let's go back to a better time. Yeah. And I think that's inspirational, but for, for us it's like global and politicized, you know? So it's very different. But even back then that, that, that title song is like, you could, you could modernize their lyrics and, and, and play it now, and people will be like, oh yeah, this is what's happening right now.

Brett Benner:

Yeah, no, a hundred percent, that's, that's a hundred percent where we are. It's such a weird. I dunno, it's completely bizarre, but it, it kind of rounds out our conversation in that there is a universality that is happening with this book that it doesn't matter in terms of religion, which is the, such a major theme of this book because I think people of all religions recognize not only these people, but but what the arguments, discussions are. And, and that's what makes it, I think so fantastic is use sit there and say, okay, it's the same. It's, it's all really the same and, and. I think that's a testament to you and your writing, which is I think just, it's so fantastic.

Syed M Masood:

Well, thank you. Appreciate it. I mean, I, you know, one of my, one of the things of all my books, like, aside from this one, but all of them, including Last Man is just, you know, having been everywhere, like not everywhere, but having been a lot of places in the world, you know you sort of realize people are basically the same everywhere. They have the same needs and desires and they've developed differently and they have different cultures and stuff. But the fundamental humanity is the same. And so I try and capture that and it's always gratifying to hear that I did that. So No,

Brett Benner:

you, you did it a hundred percent. Look, I'm so excited for you, for our, for our listeners and viewers, go get it by independent if you can. And if you've not read the Bad Muslim discount, absolutely get that.'cause it truly, it is also just. Equally as good as this. I wanna thank you so much for, for being here today. You're as funny as you are in person, as you are in your writing, so it's incredibly gratifying and I'm so excited to see what happens with this book and so congrats.

Syed M Masood:

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It was great talking to you. I appreciate it.