Christopher Castellani, Last Seen

In this episode Brett sits down with Christopher Castellani to talk about his new book, 'Last Seen'. They discuss the origins for this mystery that is tinged with magical realism, the magnet and draw of youth, writing flawed characters, faith, anxiety, and the magical connection between author and reader. 

Christopher's website:

https://christophercastellani.com/

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https://www.instagram.com/cdcastellani/

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Transcript

Brett Benner: 0:00

Hey everybody. It's Brett Banner and welcome or Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack, where today I'm sitting down with author Christopher Castellani for his new novel. Last scene, a little bit about Christopher. Christopher Cast's fourth novel leading men for which he received a Guggenheim fellowship Received a rave review from Dwight Garner and the New York Times, where it was an editor's choice. It receives similarly positive reviews from People Entertainment Weekly interview, and The Washington Post among other outlets. It's currently being adapted for film by Searchlight Pictures. Castellani is also the author of three other novels. All this talk of Love, a New York Times Editor's Choice, A Kiss from Madelena winner of the Massachusetts Book Award and the Saint of Lost Things. His book of essays on point of view in fiction, the Art of Perspective, who Tells The Story is taught in many writing workshops. He is the current writer and residence at Brandeis University on the faculty of the Warren Wilson College, low residency, MFA program. And the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and serves as the chair of the writing panel at Young Arts, AKA, the National Foundation for the Advancement of Artists. Christopher grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and now lives in Boston and Provincetown, Massachusetts. He was educated at Swarthmore College, received his master's in English Literature from Tufts University and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University. So I hope you enjoy this episode of. Hey everybody. I am thrilled to be sitting down today with Christopher Castellani for his new book Last Seen. It's, it's such a beautiful haunting. Oh my God. It just, uh, it really, I don't know, it just moved me so much, so I'm so thrilled you're here.

Christopher Castellani: 1:53

Thank you. That's so kind of you. Thank you having me on. It's

Brett Benner: 1:58

reading. This is before you wrote. Your previous book Leading Men that you said you didn't outline your books and you preferred to let the characters and stories take you where they would, does that work for this as well?

Christopher Castellani: 2:08

Both this and for leading men were more challenging because of, because uh, for leading men, I was writing about real people who lived in real places and were actually in those places at certain dates and times, and I wanted to write a story that. Could actually have happened even if it didn't happen. So I actually did have to do a bit more outlining with that one in order to just make sure that overall it would fit into the, into the narrative arc. And similarly with this one, I was working in, not necessarily a genre, but with with issues that I had never. AKA potential murder potential, investigations or whatever and timelines around disappearances. Once I got to a certain point of the book, once I kind of felt my way into the story, I realized I was gonna have to really figure out how all of this fit together time-wise. And so I did have to block out more of an outline. But that was mainly for the, you know, plot. So to speak, less so. Emotional trajectory. Like I'm not the type of writer who will think, okay, this character has to change by this certain point. Mm-hmm. Or I want this to happen in their life. I, I really do just follow along in their emotional journey and then how, and then map that onto any outline of plot.

Brett Benner: 3:29

Interesting. Okay. Well, I want to come back to just a second, but I, I wanna get right into, do you have a, an elevator pitch of the book for people?

Christopher Castellani: 3:35

I guess the typical thing would be, you know, for young men. Disappear and are founded in different parts of the country and we hear how they got there, you know, from beyond the grave, and we see the impact that their lives had on their loved ones.

Brett Benner: 3:53

It's very succinct. I mean, It's a, it's a mystery. It's as much, the story is as much to me about the survivors or the people who have lived Yes. As it is the people who have died. Where, where was the idea for this?

Christopher Castellani: 4:05

This has been brewing since around 20 18, 20 17, I think. And when I saw a news report of a young man in Boston who was found, well actually first who had gone missing and then. I forget if it was days or weeks later when he was finally found in the Charles River, and the chatter around it was that he was, the potential victim of this smiley face killer. And I was like, what is that? You know? And, and so I went into this rabbit hole and learned that there were all these cases and stories of young men, many of whom looked. Very similar, college aged white, usually kind of athletic, usually kind of good looking who kind of disappeared under similar circumstances. Usually went out with friends and then suddenly, you know, they left the bar or just kind of, you know, just vanished and turned up in a body of water. And, and there are these people, and particularly these two detectives, I learned through the research or just from poking around online who were convinced that there is this sort of shadowy network of. Of serial killers out there targeting these men and making this happen. The more I dug into it, the more I realized how sort of preposterous in a way it was, that, that there could be this network, you know? Because eventually most of those stories had a, uh, defined result, right? They, they were solved in the sense that they were, turned out, they were drunk and stumbled on a rock and, you know, hit their head and died, or there was a, or they died by suicide, or they, were targeted by someone they knew and it was a fight or whatever. But there were this, this subset of them that were never explained. And to this day, no one knows exactly what happened to this. About 25% of these cases, and, and those ones do have these weird similarities. So I got caught up in all of that and, but I, I really didn't know how to tell the story or even what the story was. Mm-hmm. To be honest, I just knew that I was fascinated by this idea or by this. Phenomenon, which I then started to notice everywhere, right? So anytime there was a, you know, there was a disappearance or, or whatever, I, I, it would, you know, I would notice it. And and then when I would talk to people about it, they'd say, oh yeah, that, you know, that happened in my town, you know, or, or I just heard about that happening in St. Paul last week or whatever. So I thought, what is this about? And I tried to write my way into it. And it started off very much more kind of traditional in the sense of, you know, I, I think I, the original draft had the first scene being like a reporter on the banks of a river, telling a story. And it just didn't feel me. It didn't feel right. It, and, and it really clicked for me when I just, one day kind of sounds hokey, but I heard a voice, you know, and it really was the voice of. Someone saying, I am one of those boys, they keep finding in the river. That was the first line that that came to me and I just kind of followed that voice and, and that became the character of Matt, who is the first character who kind of starts out the book in this long soliloquy. And then I thought, okay, well if he is there, who else is there? And then I just kind of, again, followed my instinct. Did some, obviously reading about some of the, some of these young men who disappeared and. Kind of put together like four composites of people. They're not based on anyone in real life, but, but they're kind of pieces of various stories and formed them into these four men, four young men. And then, like you said, I actually then became interested in who they left behind and, and of course how they actually died. And, and then it all just kind of, it flowed organically from there. So

Brett Benner: 7:55

That's so cool. You then wrote them as, would you focus today? I'm gonna sit with Leo for today, or work through this and then kind of cobble them together. Is that how you, in terms of construction?

Christopher Castellani: 8:05

Yeah. I mean, I, I did actually, I wrote. Big sections of each of the four guys sections first, and then, but that's not even true. Like I wrote big sections, but then I'd also write a little bit of like each of them, I should have said before, each of them. In the afterlife can both can communicate with each other, right? Which through the rivers, right, which, and rivers can speak to each other. So they speak to each other in this kind of murky limbo, bardo afterlife. And they're trying to piece together kind of what happened to them, but they're tied to one. Person in their life, the person that they loved the most, or with whom they had the strongest realist in their minds connection. And so I started to become, of course, intensely interested in their relationships and then would write pieces of those sections as well, which is partly why the book is in this kind of mosaic kind of style. And that also I wanted it to mirror. Effects of which are not linear, you know, but do kind of come at you when you least expect it. So yeah, so that's, that's how that happened.

Brett Benner: 9:14

One of the books that I thought of a lot when I was reading this because of the idea of. The dead speaking to us as the reader was, Alice Siebel's. Lovely bones.

Christopher Castellani: 9:23

The lovely bones.

Brett Benner: 9:24

Yep.

Christopher Castellani: 9:24

Mm-hmm.

Brett Benner: 9:25

Yeah. It, and it felt very much in that kind of world to me. I loved this idea of these boys all kind of communicating with, with each other and forming their own kind of relationship. One of them talked about this idea of summoning. Can you talk about that for a second?

Christopher Castellani: 9:40

Yes. So this is also the first time I've ever written anything with any kind of. Magical realism or supernatural anything. So the way I imagined it is that it's almost like, as I said, they can sort of see and hear each other in this kind of murky afterlife. But just as in real life, you kind of find your people, you know, you kind of find the people who are your MO your most connected to for reasons maybe you don't even understand there's some kind of kinship and so. I had these four young men kind of find each other and the way that they can communicate with each other is just kind of thinking about each other and summoning them. And then they kind of appear, I describe it in the book as almost like a dorm room where there's all this noise outside and the, in the hallways. But the four guys are, you know, being kind of called to their, to, to their little quad, which I also had in college. So I kind of thought about this, my three best friends and I lived in this little quad and, that's where they kind of hang out and talk. Of course that's not how I literally imagine them like sitting there, but, but just kind of almost like a mind, like just kind of a mind connection, mind meld. Exactly. And they can see each other, but as the novel goes on, they each start to kind of fade. And that is related to their, how they understand what happened to them and ultimately and when they get solved.

Brett Benner: 10:57

Yeah, I I wanted to read this one part where, one of'em is talking about explaining the whole situation. He said, most of us believe this fucked up situation to be death. A few of us, Leo and sometimes Caleb and sometimes me, have convinced ourselves it's real life and that the before what we used to call real life AKA our lives was actually pre-life. Practice, test, practice for what and when the final exam was scheduled. Though nobody can say we were waiting forever and forever waiting for the next part. The big divides are among the guys who think it'll be better, the guys who think it'll be worse, and the guys who think there is no next part at all. That this yapping and floating and gradual blurring and fading voices isn't some between life. But our permanent condition, a never ending frat party without the beer pong or the girls or the community service. And then among that particular group of guys, there's another deeper divide between the ones who think it's a punishment and the one who think it's a reward. I thought that was so great. Thank you. Thank you. The other thing that they talk about, the character of Matthews is explaining is he. The idea of getting through this is by not thinking of the loved ones and the ones you've left behind. And, and the one thing to not explicitly not do is look at them to see what's gone on. Which brings us to the people they've left. Behind. It's an interesting thing because there's two characters that resonated so much among these four boys. The characters that they interacted with. The one is Monica, who is a, a woman who is having an affair with one of these young boys who she hires effectively to help with her child who's autistic. Mm-hmm. And the other is James, who this character to me was heartbreaking. It was a beautifully written character, but it's interesting because first of all, yesterday I had read your, short story, the Living in 2015. Oh yeah.

Christopher Castellani: 12:51

Right, right.

Brett Benner: 12:52

And it was so fascinating to me. No, but it seemed very much like. This story for those who don't know is, is about a, a man and his wife. And he's married and he's at a, at a, at a, um, kind of a celebration of life, asked to Eulogize and someone in the process of this whole thing happening this day, he comes across a memory of someone that he was in love with a, a young man mm-hmm. And who he really kind of is and what he's hiding. And it's almost seemed like this thing was the seed for then what became later, James.

Christopher Castellani: 13:18

Yes. Yes. I mean, they're definitely similar creatures. First of all, I wanted every character in this book. And this is true of most literary fiction, right? I wanted every character in this book to neither be a villain or a hero, right? To have these characteristics that are hopefully compelling, but not exactly, you know, people you'd wanna be friends with or, or you, you would approve of all of their behavior, right? I wanted to write about real people and our flaws and our shortcomings, in addition to our whatever, charms and whatever. Passions and good aspects of our character we have. And so I think both James and Monica are actually really good examples of that because both of them kind of in some ways act very despicably, right? Mm-hmm. And yet in other ways are kind of victims of their own weakness and their own, inability to have a coherent sense of self. And so I really wanted to explore that and I have for various. In various ways have connected with, you know, men who are ostensibly straight, but who have passions that are, that are not straight, and who do connect emotionally, physically, sexually with another man or other men, while maintaining a very real and loving relationship with. A woman or women. And I've always been fascinated by that dynamic, by that situation that these men in which I actually find rather tragic in the sense that there, there should be a way, for those men to live a bit more peacefully. And I feel like most of those men that I've encountered. Are kind of tortured by this, or if not tortured, maybe it's too strong, but troubled maybe by, by their, sure. By this, you know? And so I really, really wanted to explore that, which I did with the other character you mentioned. And with James,

Brett Benner: 15:03

it's interesting, even like, because you know, this isn't giving anything away, the character of James, he really begins to go down a rabbit hole and investigate these missing boys and what's happened to them because of his own experience and his own relationship with one of them. I don't know. I just, there was something to me about also, this is with Monica as well, and there's this idea of being kind of smitten with this beautiful youth. Yes. And um, I've always been fascinated with this idea of, sometimes it's, it's, it's tragedy befall, but of young people who kind of burn a little brighter and, And they talk about it in the book mm-hmm. About how that something, something sets them apart, right? Yes. What is it, what is the magnet that pulls it to them? I used to talk about certain people in, in my life. I'm sure everybody has it who seemed to attract something bad or something negative. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. And, and that is such a fascinating thing, and it's certainly in this of like. What do you think that is? That intangible? I don't, I don't know what that is.

Christopher Castellani: 16:08

I don't know what it is either, but I completely agree with you that, that, that it exists, right? And that, and that it, it it, I I love the way you described it as like burning brighter and, and how incredibly attractive literally that is to people whose lives like James', like Monica's has kind of. Is very dull, not just in the mundane, everyday sense of the wor of the word, but just dull in the sense of not passionate, like just sort of going through the motions of life. Sure. Right. Yeah. And, and I think you're right. I mean, if you may, you may have noticed that almost. I think every chapter or every, every storyline has some aspect of what they now call age gap relationships. Right? Yeah. Where there are people who are, you know, may December romances, whatever they used to call them, and I've, that's another thing that I, I didn't set out to write about that, but, but that. Ultimately became an aspect of every storyline. And I think it's exactly what you said, it's that, you know, I'm in my fifties now, like I'm getting to the point where I'm like looking back and thinking about like how much more vibrant and whatever and passionate I used to be, and less jaded and less, more hopeful, more optimistic. And I think there's something, especially in the character of Caleb who's the young gay, man who is one of the young boys in the river, he is so full of like. He wants to change the world. He wants to save the climate, he wants to all these things. And James is someone who has sort of, in a way, given up on any kind of

Brett Benner: 17:39

sure. Hope. And so

Christopher Castellani: 17:40

that has to be one of the things that, attracts us to youth is that kind of promise, that that kind of optimism that many of us have kind of lost, you know, and Monica being in a kind of. You know, I wouldn't say loveless marriage, but like a, a marriage that is again, has, is kind of like in a holding pattern potentially. Right? Um,

Brett Benner: 18:03

it feels passionless. It certainly feels,

Christopher Castellani: 18:05

yes.

Brett Benner: 18:08

It's so funny. Okay. And this is so the, the gay man in me, but I could add up with Caleb as I'm getting an, as you even describing him right now, I kept seeing Connor's story as this kid,, from heated rivalry. I don't know if you've watched Rival yet.

Christopher Castellani: 18:25

I have, yes, of course.

Brett Benner: 18:27

Who plays the Russian? Yes, yes. But I'm, I'm watching. He, he, to me is this example as I'm watching this. Yeah. This kid on the red carpet. Yeah. And just the explosion that's kind of happened around him and the internet fascination with him, with both these boys, with all of them, frankly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he in particular, there was just, there's just something, I don't know, it's just a, it's just a weird thing and it, you know, we talk about it. A lot in casting or when you're casting a role, because you'll talk about mm-hmm. That star quality or that charisma. You'll see a lot of people come through and you're like, they're good actors. They're good actors. Yes. But there's that one particular person that comes in and you're like, this is a, it's extra. Yeah. There's something here that I, you can't Absolutely. You know, define it in particular, and, and that's so prevalent here.

Christopher Castellani: 19:13

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Brett Benner: 19:17

Getting into your kind of magical realism there. You know, some of these characters do find a way to oddly communicate with their loved ones. Mm-hmm. Whether it's, you know, slightly moving something, something a picture moves or something like that. Mm-hmm. Has anything like this ever happened to you as you think or No,

Christopher Castellani: 19:33

it's, no, it's something though that is not, you know, I come from my, both my parents were Italian immigrants and, both grew up in Italy, came here and. While they never officially kind of. You know, believed in ghosts. They also didn't disbelieve in ghosts. And always just kind of was matter of fact that, that the ghosts of, you know, their parents, their grandparents, the people they knew were kind of around somewhere, and so if they had seen them or sensed them or whatever, and I have spent time back in the village in Italy, and that's very much like a another. That's very much the kind of belief there too. And so to me it doesn't seem so farfetched at all, even though I have never had that direct experience. I think I kind of in a way long for it, you know, because I want to be, I think maybe some of this is a little, I mean probably much of it is kind of wishful film that in the sense that you want to feel that the connection you had with someone is going to transcend. Is going to transcend death. Right. And that maybe you don't speak the same language. Right. Maybe like it's, there's not the direct way of communicating, but there's some way in which they are communicating that we don't even realize, you know? And so this was a literal kind of description of that in a way of characters able to manipulate objects or whatever, but I think there's a language that we communicate with, with the dead and that who they communicate with us that we actually don't even know we're speaking. Right. And so that's kind of what I was trying to put, put forth.

Brett Benner: 21:06

You were Catholic, right? Growing up. Uh, are, are you still,

Christopher Castellani: 21:11

Um, I don't consider myself Catholic anymore. But I, and I don't even know if I consider myself word spoken most by most Catholic

Brett Benner: 21:17

later in

Christopher Castellani: 21:18

life. Exactly, exactly. And I was, you know, and I did my time. It was 12 years Catholic school, Umar boy organist, you know, like I feel like I've put in a lifetime of Catholicism in 20 years and then have spent the rest of my life kind of trying to undo some. Damage that was done, you know, especially around, of course, around sexuality and around, you know, all of that so, and shame and, and all that. So, so I definitely have been working through that and that certainly appears in various ways here in this novel, in the character of Leo's sibling, and a few other places the Catholic mother of Matt. And so I was kind of working through a lot of those things. I mean, I, I'm embarrassed to say I don't. Coherent spiritual sense. You know, I'm, I don't think much about it. I do feel like there is something beyond us, but I don't, but I don't really a lot. Like a world-class hypochondriac. I don't think much about what actually happens once you die. I just think I don't wanna get there, you know?

Brett Benner: 22:27

Right, right. You just, you, you just wanna avoid all the avenues that might lead to it.

Christopher Castellani: 22:31

Exactly. Exactly.

Brett Benner: 22:34

So we're, we're, we're, we're very much cut from the same cloth. Like I've, it's funny because I was based in a conservative WASP family, but it was the same kind of thing. As my journey as into adulthood, moved from kind of traditional religion to kind of a more spiritual understanding of things. But also being, well-versed in the world of the hypochondriac. I dunno about you, but every time I go to have a physical and they do blood work and they come back and they're like, okay, everything looks great. And I'm like, you've clearly messed it up. I mean

Christopher Castellani: 23:02

no, obviously you missed something. Yeah.

Brett Benner: 23:06

Yes. I'm always like, did you get the charts mixed up because

Christopher Castellani: 23:09

Right.

Brett Benner: 23:09

Hello? Like

Christopher Castellani: 23:10

Exactly. But then the other weird thing, I dunno if this is true for you too, like is that when you actually do have something wrong with you, for example, my doctor was like, you have high blood pressure, you should take, I. Like, it's funny, you know, like, so that's the thing I don't understand for me at least when no,

Brett Benner: 23:27

I

Christopher Castellani: 23:27

under.

23:27

Yeah.

Christopher Castellani: 23:27

Yeah. So

23:28

when

Brett Benner: 23:28

it's substantiated. Yeah. Again, this is another reason why I think when I was reading your book and especially the James section mm-hmm. I kept being like, oh my God, I was this gonna hit too close home. Okay. Going back to the four kids. Before kids. I say that like I know them, but also they are kids.'cause they're very young. They're,

Christopher Castellani: 23:47

well, I want you to feel like you know them, so that's good. Right,

Brett Benner: 23:51

right. We've talked about Stephen, who was involved with Monica. Mm-hmm. And then we also talked about Caleb who was involved with James. There's two other kids. There's Leo Ridgeway, who you had started to say is has a single mom, very Catholic. Mm-hmm. And then a sister, Katie. Mm-hmm. Which again, this, I loved this narrative. I love where you went with this, and I loved what you did with the sister.

Christopher Castellani: 24:18

Thank you.

Brett Benner: 24:19

And then there's Matthew Carlo, and part of the way you reveal this story of who he is, he's involved with this woman, or he is kind of really obsessed with this young woman named Chae. And part of the way this story reveals itself is through a series of text exchanges between she and her girlfriend, which I just thought that was so fascinating with all of these four men. Did you know how their ends were going to come about when you started out?

Christopher Castellani: 24:46

I did not, I really did not. I really did like meet them by hearing their voices and they, it sounds so hokey and nobody ever believes it, but they really did lead me to, to their ends. Right. I didn't know how they died when it's, when I first started running them. Of course, as I wrote them, it's, you know. I said, they're, they're speaking to me. I'm thinking about things. I'm thinking about all the different ways in which the so, so smiley face guys, ultimately passed away, right? And so I'm thinking. Who would this kid be? Why is he in the river? Like how did he get there? I knew I didn't wanna write two or three, or certainly not four people meeting their deaths in the same way. They had to each be different. So I had to really listen to them and get into their characters to find out how they got there. And that really ultimately is what kind of. The book for me is like, I feel like, you know, I'm interested in true crime. I'm interested in how-tos and mysteries and all that. And of course the satisfaction you get from them is like, you know, oh, this is who did it and that's great. And I wanted that to be a part of their stories, but was way, way, way more interested in just who they were as people. Right. Which you don't often get from, you know. More Flocky. Yeah, exactly. Like there's obviously a range when it comes to true crime and thrillers. Some are way deeper and some are more, you know, plot focused. And I really wanted to investigate character and they just happened to be four characters who had these, you know. Unusual deaths, let's say. So I was way less interested in, in that side of it. And yet of course, that is directly tied to their character that you can't separate plot from character and what happened to them from who they were. Right. It's impossible.

Brett Benner: 26:41

Sure.

Christopher Castellani: 26:42

So I really had to do a deep dive and to think about who these guys were and that led me to their different jets. I had other guys, I heard other guys along the way, and they ultimately did not. Because their stories were too similar or couldn't get ahold of them. Exactly. They end up in the book as just other guys who were floating around with them. But but they didn't end up being in focus in the story in this novel. And I really drew with Leo in particular, I have all my life, had really struggled a lot, a lot, a lot with, anxiety and panic. In particular, panic disorder, had panic attacks all my life and. I had a very, very hard time with those in my twenties, you know, a severely hard time. And I wanted to now, 30 years later, like really get back to that and, and, and describe what that was like. And when I met Leo, I felt like, you know what? I think he had that same problem too. And so I, I kind of wrote that through, through him. And so that led to an end that I myself may have. Gotten to if I hadn't gotten the same, the kind of help that I had gotten. So, just to be totally candid.

Brett Benner: 27:55

Yeah. It's such an interesting thing because, you know, so many of these are, are, are set earlier. It's two, it's 2016, it's 2018.

Christopher Castellani: 28:03

Right.

Brett Benner: 28:04

And I, and, and I wonder if you feel this way too, it just as you're, I'm listening to you talk about this mm-hmm. Of what we know now in terms of mental health, in terms of, mm-hmm. Anxiety, in terms of, mm-hmm. These diagnosis, which, you know, there was none of this. When I, I'll speak for myself. When I was young, it was, you know, and I've had this conversation with other writers at times it was, you know, mm-hmm. Certainly anxiety, for example, of which I was prone to as well. Mm-hmm. You were just told, you know, calm down or, you know. Yeah. It's, it's nothing and I always wonder, and I think about this with this character and what you're just talking about. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If we knew now what we knew then, and I've talked about this with my business partner too, how our lives would've been so much different

Christopher Castellani: 28:46

Yeah.

Brett Benner: 28:46

To be able to facilitate that.

Christopher Castellani: 28:50

Absolutely. Yeah. And for this character as well, his, his mother, he comes from a house with a, with a, he has, his father is, has abandoned them. His mother is addicted to drugs. He is basically the caretaker of his sister on some level. And he doesn't have really the resources to help himself. Right, right. And I mean, he turns to, his, his authority is Reddit, you know, and that's where he gets His therapy, so to speak. And that doesn't lead to a good place, let's just say. And I did, I, and I found myself doing similar things back in the day, which was like going to the library, you know, and looking up in the card catalog, not only homosexuality and the card catalog, but like, you know, depression, anxiety, that sort of thing. And we do what we can in order to survive. Right? And actually it was. Actually a episode of Oprah, that where I first saw myself, right? And somebody on Oprah, there was a whole episode of Oprah on panic, panic attacks. And, and it was a revelation to me, you know? And so even when we don't have the resources, because I could never talk to my family about this. I could never tell anybody I was feeling anything but normal. But it's amazing what kind of comes to help us, you know, and, and what we seek out. So, yeah.

Brett Benner: 30:00

Yeah. No, absolutely. I wanna end on a moment with a quote from the book that I loved this so much again, when one of the characters is talking and he says, time is just one big moment after another big moment. And in between the big moments other stuff happens that you mostly forget, then you string along the big moments in your memory and turn them into your story. Mm-hmm. And I thought that was so. Right on. And it made me just think about again, your own life and mm-hmm. Also the idea of who tells your story. Mm-hmm. And how you tell the story. And what are the things like just listening to you sharing about your own experiences. Mm-hmm. Which were obviously very impactful in your life that. Puts it forward, and I just thought that was so incredible.

Christopher Castellani: 30:58

Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful for pointing out that quote, because to me that idea speaks to why we read novels in the first place. And I'll explain that by saying that I had a professor in college who talked about novels as all, like he, he would say. All novels are about time because it takes so much time to read a novel. And the pleasure of reading a novel is that you feel as though you're living a long, like you're living a life with a character. And unlike our own life, we can slow it down, speed it up, go back to it, relive it in exactly how it was in the book, right? Whereas with most of us, we forget. I mean, most of our lives are lost to us, right? Yeah. Like we, we forget. Most of it, right? And so, um, this is what we get from novels so profoundly is, is the ability to slow down time to almost stop it and to, and to like relive it again and again and again through characters that we identify with, bond with, root for cry with, laugh with, et cetera. You know? And and that's why the novel is. My absolute favorite form, uh, to read and to and, and to write because there's nothing more powerful to me than that.

Brett Benner: 32:16

No. And it's such an intimate experience.

Christopher Castellani: 32:18

Exactly.

Brett Benner: 32:19

The more conversations I have and the more people I talk to and even just say people who are sharing their experience of one particular book. Mm-hmm. And what it's about them or what it is about that book that sets something off that, that I think is such an incredible thing. I think it's so amazing what. The writer gives the reader, but then what the reader brings to the experience and how the two kind of dance together. I think it's really Exactly, it's such an incredible, incredible thing.

Christopher Castellani: 32:49

Mm-hmm. It really is. It's magic.

Brett Benner: 32:51

It no, it, it totally, it's it, it completely is. Well, Christopher, this has been great and the book is, is so wonderful. So please go out and get it. Buy independent if you can. Absolutely check it out. I so appreciate you being here today. It's just been wonderful talking with you.

Christopher Castellani: 33:10

This was a great, it's a great start for me for this trip.

Brett Benner: 33:13

Thank you again, Chris, and if you'd like this conversation or other conversations that you've heard on behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so you never miss an episode. Also, I always ask, but if you could do me a favor and if you're enjoying the show, please consider going to your podcast platform of choice and giving it five stars. And another amazing thing would be if you could give it a review. Things like this help put the podcast in front of more listeners. I will see you next week. In the meantime, you can always find me on Instagram at Brett's books stack on substack under Brett's books stack and on YouTube with the same name as well. Thanks everybody.