Ben Reeves, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

Brett sits down with writer Ben Reeves to discuss his debut novel, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurts. They talk about death obviously, but also his ideas for what death should look like and the rules involved in the story. They talk children, and grief, and growing up, and survival, and taking the time to notice the life happening around you, while you still have the chance. 

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https://benreeves.co.uk/

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https://www.instagram.com/authorbenreeves/

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Transcript

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Brett Benner 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Brett, and welcome or welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with author Ben Reeves for his debut, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt. As I said to Ben, I came in late to the party and read this kind of after the fact and absolutely fell in love with it. The same way when I first read Virginia Evans' Correspondent and knew that I had to talk to her, I knew I had to talk to Ben as well. The book is really buzzy for a reason. It's a very beautiful meditation on life and death and grief, all told from the perspective of death. A little bit about Ben. He lives in Peterborough, UK with his wife and two children. An early draft of Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt won the International 2024 Bath Novel Award. When he's not writing, he paints, makes music, and works as a web designer for a book printing company. So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack I am thrilled to be sitting down with author Ben Reeves for his just beautiful book, Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt. So Ben, thank you so much for being here today.

Ben Reeves 1:15

Thank you, Brett. It's a pleasure.

Brett Benner 1:16

Okay, so you are kind of this amazing multi-hyphenate, where you are an artist and a musician and a r- and a writer, and so I was asking you, is there, uh, is there one of these that you prefer more than the others?

Ben Reeves 1:31

Yeah, um, writing is definitely the big one. That's like my first love. That's where I feel at home. That's what I feel like I was born to do, you know? But it's not always necessarily the one that I enjoy the most because it can be a lot harder. I've got more stake in it. I want it to be really, really good. Whereas something like music, writing music can be a lot more like play. B- I find music as well, you get a lot more immediate feedback. Within, like, half an hour you can start getting a pretty good song going, whereas writing can take weeks and weeks and weeks, and you still don't quite know if it's good or where it's going or if, you know, if, if it's gonna be worth it. Music's really fun. I love, like, just playing with clay and things like that because, again, you can get quite immediate feedback from the thing that you're doing, and you can start to see it come to life. But writing will always be the, the main one. Yeah, that's, that's what I... If I could do nothing else, it would just be the writing.

Brett Benner 2:21

So did you, did you write when you were young, when you were little?

Ben Reeves 2:25

Yeah, I wrote when I was little, and, when we were recording before, you asked me if, like, my family if they're creative or anything like that. My parents really aren't. My, my dad, uh, he's a very practical man. He loves, like, fixing things and building, you know, fixing cars and he, he does build stuff, stuff to be fair. He's like a, he's a carpenter, so he does build things, which is obviously creative, but he would never, never, dabble in, say, music or, or writing that I, that I'm, that I know of. My mum, I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying, not a creative bone in her, in her body. My kids are very creative., We're, we're quite a creative house. My wife's creative. Um, I always like to surround them with art and, and books, and we share music and things like that, so yeah, we're, it's a house of creativity definitely, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's kinda nice. I like

Brett Benner 3:10

it. It's so, it's so fascinating because before I went into casting, I was an actor, and I went to school for acting, and so I always had that kind of creative thing- And my parents the same way, like nothing really in the family. Like- Mm-hmm my father was an insurance salesman, and my mom, mom was a housewife. And of course we, we read. We grew up with books and, and those kind of things, and she would always take me to the library. But I always, always find it fascinating when kids come out and they're so different than the environment- Mm that they were raised in and, and kind of how that develops. What it... Do you play guitar? Is that what it is?

Ben Reeves 3:41

Yeah, I play a bit of guitar. I mean, I'm not very good, but I, I can play guitar, I play piano. Um, I... The thing about music is I like that I don't know very much about it, so I like that when I look at a fretboard of a guitar, I don't really know what it means and where all the notes are. That is a really nice sensation, and I kind of never wanna lose that. Whereas writing, I sort of have been doing it so long that I kind of almost know, not too much about it, but I can sort of see behind what's going on- Mm behind the writing when you read a book and things, whereas music's very mysterious to me, which I, I, I really enjoy that. Yeah, mainly piano and guitar, but I like composing music as well.

Brett Benner 4:15

Interesting. Okay, so the book, do you have an elevator pitch for the book?

Ben Reeves 4:19

Kind of. I, I like to say that it's a book about life narrated by Death. Death is just a normal guy called Travis, who, he lives in a kind of gray, run-down town, and his job is to comfort people in their last few moments of life. So he will sit with them, he'll listen to their stories. He'll never, ever judge or try and change anything. He's just there at the end to see you out to whatever follows next. And so naturally, because it's about death, there's a lot of sadness in it, but hopefully, I, I'd really like to try and bring out the richness and beauty of life as well without being preachy. It just explores a lot of, a lot of nature and a lot of things that we maybe miss but should possibly pay more attention to. I realize this isn't an elevator pitch at all. This is now a- No, no, no,

Brett Benner 5:01

no, no an essay. It's, it's, it's so fine. It's so fine. We're in a very tall building.

Ben Reeves 5:05

Yeah. Oh, cool. And, uh, so because he's Death, he is quite lonely because he doesn't wanna make thr- friends because he's, you know, he's gonna watch every single person in the world die, so he doesn't wanna make friends. But then against his better judgment, he slowly meets this little family who live across the hall, a single mother called Dahlia, who's a midwife, and her two young children, and Travis just can't help himself but fall in love with this little family, and we get to see how it evolves from there as he sort of, introduces himself- Mm into their lives unwittingly.

Brett Benner 5:36

It took you 20 years to write, right?

Ben Reeves 5:38

It took, well, it took me 20 years to get to this point. this book was actually quite quick to write. It was only a few months long. But I've written maybe seven before. I started writing se- I'd say I started writing seriously when I was 18, so I'm 38 now, so about 20 years to get to, to this one, and this is where it kind of all came together, I think.

Brett Benner 6:00

Now, I know you had talked about, in 2016 that you had got an agent. You talked about this agent loved this book. Was this the book at the time that that agent loved?

Ben Reeves 6:09

In, in 2016, no, no. Okay. That was a different book, a different agent. I thought that that would be the one. I thought that that was gonna be, you know, if I was gonna get published, it would be that one. In hindsight, I'm absolutely glad it wasn't that one. I'm really glad it's this one. This is the better book and, you know, at the time I couldn't understand. That book just completely fell through and I just lost that agent. We, we're still, you know, amicable with each other, but we, she just sort of fell out of love with the book. And at the time I couldn't understand it. I was like, "Why?" You know, she said she loved it. Why has this happened? But in hindsight, I've become a better writer in those years, what is it? Nearly about 10 years since then. And that, that book absolutely could never have been published, so she made absolutely- Hmm the right decision. It wasn't good enough, and I still needed to do some more work. And, uh, yeah, it's the best thing that could've happened because this is the one, this is the best debut that I could possibly do, I think.

Brett Benner 6:57

What was the original impetus for you? Like, what, what was the thing that set you off to think there's a something here to kind of noodle on- Hmm and grow?

Ben Reeves 7:05

I think it's a few things. As a kid, I mean, it sounds so silly and a bit kind of soulless or boring, but I loved TV. I loved, I loved watching te- telly. Like, I loved characters and stories, and I, I, I really actually loved the big stories. So I would love things like any Spielberg film, you know, ET, Jurassic Park, the, the big stories that capture people. I loved things like Gladiator and Titanic, the real cultural ones that just grab people and sort of stick with the culture. I lo- I loved all of those, and I still love those. But as I got older, I also fell in love with language and words and just playing with words and trying to figure out how we can do different things ju- just through language. And then I suppose the, the final, the final sort of step was, just writing and figuring out what I wanted to write, what kind of book I really wanted to... If, if I was, if there's gonna be a Ben Reeves book, what is that? Mm-hmm. And I think it's about this exploration of life and particularly meaning and, um, may- maybe with a slight weird edge to it. This book has a weird edge, you know? He is, he's Death, he's not a normal guy. And I've always been really passionate about, about telling stories, but particularly language.

Brett Benner 8:12

Did you know right away for Travis, who is our, our, who is Death, Was it always kind of the person that he ultimately became or did he start somewhere different for you? 'Cause he's, you know, he's presented as this guy in his 30s, he's affable- Yeah he's good-looking, like he's, you know, the kind of guy you'd wanna sit down in a bar with and have a drink with or- Sure feel safe to talk to.

Ben Reeves 8:31

Yeah. I knew, I knew obviously that he would be Death, and it took a little while, I guess, to figure out, okay, but what does that mean? Who, who, who would Death be? Who would my version of Death be? And I thought, well, okay, I think he would be lonely, which I've said. Like, I think he would not wanna make friends easily. But at the same time, I think he would really, really, really care about his role as Death and take it very seriously and treat it with a lot of respect because he, he cares. He wants to do a good job. He wants to make sure that at the end people feel comfortable or ready or whatever. I, I don't even quite know what's going on in his head, but I know that he takes his role very seriously. And then from there I was like, well, if he is Death, if he is the personification of Death, I knew I didn't want like the Grim Reaper type hood- scythe. I wasn't interested in that. I wanted a normal guy. Um, and I thought, well, I th- I think he would be very connected to nature. He would be able to almost see and feel everything everywhere all at once, and he would just, he would just be so connected to all of it. And the things that we don't see, and even though we just get... in this book, we only get a snippet. We only really get to see in this one town. There's the sense that he is also just everywhere in the whole world because that's who Death is. He is... There's things that we're not privy to. And that was really fun because it meant that in my daily life I could try and inhabit Travis and see the world through his eyes and really try and pay attention to the tiny, tiny things that w- you'd normally just walk past and not think twice about, to really see it. And actually, I've never ever in my life been as clear and, and as my eyes open as wide as while writing from his point of view. Yeah. And it's something that I, even though I've finished that book and I, I don't think I'll ever write from Travis's point of view again, I've s- I've tried to s- keep that with me, and I don't always. Sometimes I don't, and I, I sort of lose it a bit, and... But then I sort of bring him back and I'm like, "No, see, see the world through his eyes again," because he's... There's a way, there's a way of seeing things that just gives so much context to, to your everyday moments and things that normally would annoy you or... I don't know. There's a fine line between sort of positive, 'cause I think the book has got some positive tones in it, but I'm never, ever trying to preach. I'm never, ever trying to tell people how to live their lives. I'm never, ever just trying to give positive affirmation when there's so much hardships in everybody's life. But I hoped that through Travis, we, we could maybe see the world in a slightly different way just for those moments or, or maybe even once we close the book, just, just in a, even in the smallest way. And that was, that was a lot of fun to, to try and

Brett Benner 11:07

It's interesting 'cause two different quotes came up to me when I was reading this, and the first is John Lennon's, there's that lyric for the song Beautiful Boy where he says, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Ben Reeves 11:16

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brett Benner 11:17

And that's so much of what so much of this book represented to me, and it is what you're talking about, these, these moments that we're probably not always even aware of what's happening when they're happening. But the other thing, and, and it f- felt vaguely reminiscent to me of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, and that moment in the end when Emily says, "Is, do human beings ever realize life while they live it every, every minute?" And the narrator says, the stage manager says, "No, the, the saints and poets, maybe they do some." And that so resonated to me in reading this book because you do put all these beautiful just moments of observation down to simple things of like, you know, I mean, like c- condensation on the side of a glass or the bird outside or any of these little things that we look over. It's such an interesting thing. I've looked at a lot of your pictures on Instagram, and I don't know where you live, if it's more rural. But I told you in the beginning that I'm on this island right now, and it's such a different experience having lived in Los Angeles for the greater part of my adult life to suddenly be some place where I wake up one morning and there's literally a fawn outside my window or there's, there's this owl that I see every night when I'm walking the dogs who sits just on the telephone wire. Wow. And it's so close, and these are things that I'd never experienced before. Mm. And I'm having this kind of the revelatory experience being here, just being so immersed in nature. It's kind of incredible. And again, it felt so kind of symbiotic with the book, if that makes sense.

Ben Reeves 13:02

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I, I love that. And I, I, I th- I think you're absolutely right. Like, when you go to somewhere new, you, you notice things so much more than, than you would notice where you, where you live. And it, it's funny, like you can walk into your own bedroom in your own house and almost be blind to it because you know where everything is. You know where the bed is. You know where the wardrobe is. You don't need to see it. You don't need to see- Right that picture on the wall. You've seen it a million times. Um, but you can. You can sort of wake up and see it as if for the first time, and you can see your family as if for the first time. And it's not an easy thing to do, and it's not something that I can do every day. But even, even just for five seconds to look at your family and think, "This is actually beautiful," like, "This is, this is incredible. If o- one day I'm gonna die, and if I could come back, it might be at this moment because this is, you know, this is perfect." And then, and then obviously life comes at you again, and you remember that actually there's lots of horrible things going on and, um, life is hard. But even just for that, those few moments, it sort of seems worth it.

Brett Benner 14:04

Yeah. It's also such an interesting thing 'cause I am significantly older than you are. Like, I'm in that kind of stage in life now where a lot of my friends have, most of us have, if not lost both of our parents, are on- They're in that journey of parents getting older and trying to figure out next steps or how to deal with that. So there's so much kind of talk or acknowledgement or awareness of mortality and the way that mortality changes when you lose your parents and suddenly y- you're that cap, right? There was always someone above you. Mm. And suddenly, and then, you know, looking down at your children and realizing theoretically you could be next. And so what does that mean, and how much time do you actually have left? And it also comes up in terms of retirement and thinking, what are you doing with your life, and how much of your time do you still have here to do the things and explore and, and take advantage of the time while you still have it 'cause it's interesting with the book too, you fill the novel with these, I'll call them vignettes of, um, various people that Death, that he visits to kind of help in their last moments. I will say there's one in particular that I felt, personally attacked, Ben. Okay. Because he is, he is the office worker who's very out of shape, and there's a thing where he's- you describe him at one point as he's eating his cookie dough ice cream and having his cider, and I burst out laughing because both of those things, uh, would be extremely me. And, so I was like, "Wow, he's, he's really getting right into it here."

Ben Reeves 15:43

Well, the, the funny thing is, so h- that's, uh, Barry, uh, Barry Lightfoot who you're talking about, and, um, I, I really like Barry. I like him a lot. But in that moment, Travis has been through a particular spiritual journey or emotional journey, and he, he's not, uh, he's... He gets a bit impatient with, with Barry, doesn't he? He, he acts in ways that he wouldn't possibly normally wa- normally act, 'cause I, I mentioned that he never judges anybody, but in that, in that moment he kind of does. But yeah, you're, you're so right. I mean, I, I've, I've lost all my grandparents. As you say, th- then the sort of cap sort of lowers, so now it's the parents, my parents. And I, I suppose one thing that I was really conscious of, like we- we've just spoken about various kind of philosophies of life and ways of seeing life. It was really, really important to me as a writer. This isn't a nonfiction book, and it's not a self-help book. It was really important to me to say these things without saying it or not... maybe not even say it without saying it, but just express how I feel and just show things and let the reader make up their own minds because I don't really like books that are like, "Right, this is how you need to think about things." Hopefully, I, I say it very much without, without saying it because there's a lot of sadness as well. If I was gonna say, if I was gonna say, "Oh, life's great and happy and isn't, isn't everything wonderful?" There wouldn't be nearly as much death as there is. But I don't think it has to be depressing. I think it's something that we can just talk about a bit more and, and think about a bit more.

Brett Benner 17:02

Yeah. And it's a different thing, too, when you're, when you're young because there is this sense of invincibility, right? Mm. Even like watching like children climb a tree, and as you get older, you think, "Oh my God, I could never go." Like what if you fall? Like this, this realization of the potential for being hurt, the potential for any of those things happening, where when you're young, you don't think anything's gonna happen to you, and you could beat everything. It just doesn't come into your mind at all, and how much that changes.

Ben Reeves 17:31

Yeah. Yeah, my, my kids are f- absolutely fearless. And I, I'm the bad one. I'm like, "You know, stop running," 'cause they're running off on like, you know, paving slabs. And I can just see it. I can just see them tripping over- Yeah really, really hurt themselves. And obviously that is, that is part of life, but as a father it's like, well, just, just stop running. If you wanna run, run on the grass, you know? Yeah, it do- and it do- I think having kids, it makes you think so much more about these things, and-

Brett Benner 17:54

I was gonna ask you that it's very- I was gonna ask you, I was gonna ask you if the, if your writing or your view to things writing has changed after you've had children.

Ben Reeves 18:03

Yeah, I would, I would say so. I've always, before having kids, I've had a sense, a real palpable sense of time running out,, and me not doing all the things that I should be doing with my time and, and things like that. But having kids, you can really visibly see time passing- Mm because they're getting older, and they get old so quick. Think, I, I, I, I don't wanna make any argument about having kids or not having kids, but I'm just saying there is a difference. In my 20s, or probably in my early 20s before I had kids, like- W- you and your friends are all aging at the same rate, so you just don't notice it as much. But to see this little kid who was a baby, and then in a year they're sort of toddling, and then in a, a couple year, a few ye- years after that they're at school, it's like, what- what's going on? It's, this is crazy. Right. It did make me think more about these things and about mor- mortality and how quick it goes. You know, if I'm leaving a good legacy for, for my kids, and all, all the mistakes you make and you're thinking, you know, you wish you could go back and change it and... Yeah, they definitely have changed my writing.

Brett Benner 19:00

We always, I always will joke and say, I will... something will happen with the kids in terms of in relation to the kids, and I'll always say, "Well, I've just added five years of therapy to their life at that point-" I know. for whatever that particular thing is. Yeah.

Ben Reeves 19:12

Yeah.

Brett Benner 19:13

Um, but I do, I feel it is, it's, it is that all those cliches exist for a reason because it does-

Ben Reeves 19:20

Yes. Yeah

Brett Benner 19:20

magnify the passage of time so quickly, and, and how precious, precious it is. And like you were talking earlier about, it's hard to have that awareness of every moment. I mean, it would, it would be exhausting, frankly- Yeah to push a, a, an awareness of that so much to see it in every second because of the, the daily kind of thrum of,, something they'll do will piss you off or you'll get frustrated. And so it is hard to sometimes take that step back and be like, "These are the..." You know, for, to be so cliche, "These are the moments. This is the life moment to also savor." And I will have these moments sometimes when the, we're sitting at dinner, the four of us, and I could just take a step back and look at it- And there's this sense of peace and joy and, oh, this is pretty amazing. Like- Yeah this is- Yeah pretty awesome in this total moment.

Ben Reeves 20:11

Exactly. And I think no matter what kind of person you are, whether you've got kids or not, and just any- anybody anywhere, and you, you might not think this is true, whoever's listening, but you, you can, even if you're completely on your own, there's still a way of seeing the world that is where you're truly paying attention to it and you realize actually you're not, you're not alone at all. There's, there is this sort of life behind everything. That doesn't immediately fix everything, but it, it can just take you out of that... Because I, I've suffered with, depression for a long, long time. I don't really like to talk about it, but I have. And the things that have got me out of that are to just pay attention to the, to the small things around me. As I say, it doesn't, it, it fix everything. It doesn't make it better, but it does put you in a different space where things maybe just feel like they have a bit more meaning or you can, you can almost just forget yourself because you're now a part of this bigger thing maybe.

Brett Benner 21:00

One of the things that Travis, his kind of job, he's a ph- a photo restorer. And I thought this was such an interesting thing just because of the whole idea of, of a photographer and photographs, and this d- idea of, of capturing moments in life effectively. So it's such an apropos job for him, and it seemed, obviously, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but, but very intentional. And then I g- started to think too about what he does restoring these specific moments for these people, but the way that the idea of photographs has changed with us currently, where I think there was a time when people took photographs, they'd be on vacation. But now with a t- cell phone, people are almost living in their phone. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And they're taking pictures. There's almost no special moment because everything's a moment, to the degree where I remember sitting at a Florence The Machine concert, and the first thing she said is, "Put your phones away." Mm-hmm. Like, "You're at church with Florence. I want everyone to experience the moment-

Ben Reeves 22:00

Yeah

Brett Benner 22:00

live and not through a lens or behind a camera." And I thought that was so incredible.

Ben Reeves 22:04

It is, it's obviously a, a problem. We... As, as you say, everything becomes a moment. And, um, it, it's something that I, I don't specifically address in the book, you know, screens, because I think people have made some really good points on that in so many different ways. But it... I think it comes back to this idea of paying attention and,, actually, you can realize actually you don't need to take all these photos of every single thing that's going on- this dinner, you know? Because I'm, I'm paying attention to it right now. And, there's something about having a printed photograph as well that you can hold it and touch it and it, you know, I think there's a difference there. I saw a advert the other day for a Google Pixel phone where they're taking a selfie, but the, the guy isn't in it 'cause he's taking the picture, but then he comes around, and then AI puts him in the photo. And I was like, "What? So that's not even a real moment that you're capturing there. He wasn't there. That wasn't- Yeah that's not what happened." And that, that made me feel a bit ill. Yeah, Travis being a photo... He, he does that sort of in his downtime when he's not being Death. He, he... I wanted to give him something that he can just lose himself in. Otherwise, it would just be Death, Death, Death, Death, Death. I wanted a little bit of downtime for him. And, and yeah, I went through a few. I wanted it to be vaguely symbolic one of the other ideas w- was that he could fix clocks, which seemed somehow symbolic. But once I stumbled on the photographs thing, that really fit, especially because the little girl who lives across the hall, Layla, likes take- taking photographs. So she takes them, and then he restores other people's photographs. Never his own. He hasn't got his own photographs either, which I think fits, you know, him and his character. And people are always really happy when he gives them back this photo album of photos that he's lovingly restored, you know, with absolute care and precision. Yeah, I, I like that. I, I think as a writer, I like to give any main character something that they're really passionate about, and then me as the writer, I can also get passionate about it and help the character to lose themselves in it, which is always really enjoyable.

Brett Benner 23:53

The kind of rules for him in terms of... Did, did these kind of come as you went along? Because what I liked is there's a, there's a vagueness to certain things with him. There's no set idea about he can or can't do this. He can... The way he appears to people, the way he appears to people who aren't passing, who are just... He's passing in life and maybe spending a moment with before he's like, "It's not your time." Did those kind of things kind of just develop for you as you went along, or had you had set ideas about, did you set up from the start, "Well, this is what he will be capable of or not capable of"?

Ben Reeves 24:27

It was really important to me that we never quite know exactly how he works. I didn't wanna say, I don't know, and n- none of this is canon, he can stop time. He can go anywhere. He can- Mm-hmm uh, go in and out of, I don't know, through walls or whatever 'cause, uh, uh, it's not that sort of book where it's like we're worrying about the, the fantasy of like... Oh, hopefully, you know, he- we're not worrying about, um, oh, how did he get there and, and things like that. It's very much like, let's just accept it. Death is mysterious. We don't necessarily know everything that he can do. It was also important to, to not like have him suddenly do something really unexpected that seems impossible. That's why in the first scene of the book, he does something a little bit impossible. We sort of see him slow time. Because if I do that in the first scene, then anything that follows we can kind of accept, okay, this is not a normal guy. We don't quite know how he works, and maybe that's okay. I find that when books say, right, this is exactly, precisely how it all works, that actually takes me out of the experience. Right. 'Cause like, well, I know that's not real. You just made that up. So by leaving it out, it's like you can just imagine, and I think it feels more real because it's like, well, I don't know. You know, there's no answer in the, in the pages

Brett Benner 25:37

Yeah, 100%. Like I, I started to question, okay, is there a few of them? Are they all across the world? Mm-hmm. Is there a... Like I kept waiting for a moment when like the big boss was gonna call and be like- Right "Look-

Ben Reeves 25:48

Right

Brett Benner 25:48

you've gotta step back from this." Mm-hmm.

Ben Reeves 25:51

Yeah. It's funny, isn't it? 'Cause there's so many different ways I could have taken this story and, and that could be one. You know, maybe we- maybe we get to see the afterlife, maybe we get to see where Travis is taking these people, and maybe we get to see a list of names that he needs to take and things like that. And I was like, "No, I want it to feel really grounded." In many ways he is just a man, but he happens to also be Death. Um, a- and I really like that. I want it to be grounded in, in reality. It's interesting, isn't it? I, I, I could have, I could have maybe done that and, and y- you asked the question like, are there loads of him? Is, is he everywhere? Who knows? Who knows? Right. I'm not gonna say. Um, but I, I certainly get the sense that, um, we're only seeing a s- a s- very small contained snapshot of who he is because if we saw everything it, it'd almost be impossible to tell a story that way. He's sort of letting us in.

Brett Benner 26:38

Yeah, it becomes so vast. Suddenly you have like a seven volume book set. Yeah,

Ben Reeves 26:43

yeah. Which maybe some people would want, but I- it wasn't quite what I wanted to do for this one.

Brett Benner 26:49

Well, two things I appreciated so much about it is there's so much restraint in it. It is obviously very sad and, and I have to say my own personal experience was it, was I definitely choked up at a t- a very definitive point in the book and then I kind of got through and I have to tell you, and I'm g- no spoilers here, but like I hit the final three pages and I was sobbing. I mean, I was weeping and it was joyous. I will say that for our viewers and our listeners, it was a complete joyous weeping. It's so interesting 'cause what you do, it's almost like the book plays in two acts where you have kind of the layout of the story of who this person is and the kind of relationship he begins to develop and then the second half of the book is really a kind of a meditation on grief and how people deal with grief and how to work through it and overcome it, and it's so incredibly resonant and so incredibly raw for anybody who's been in that situation where they've lost someone close to them. You know, there's that thing that people say where losing someone is very akin to Being invited to a party where you only can come once you have this happen to you. And in some ways it's a party that no one ever would want to be invited to, and yet there's no way to fully explain it to someone who hasn't been there yet. Even the loss, and I was-- it's, it's such a strange thing, of a pet, and I'm so conscious of the cat in this that he keeps for a companion. But I know having had a series of dogs in our home, that moment too is so gutting.

Ben Reeves 28:25

Yeah. That's exactly how I thought about the book, what you said about the two, the two acts. Um, first half is very much about death, and the second half is probably a bit more about what happens after death and, and the grief. What happens to the living after, after death. Right. And I, I think you're right. I think, um, it's sort of one of those things like if you know, you know, and I, I have a lot of people message me and tell me their stories in a similar way to how people talk to Trava-Travis. You know, people will say, "I lost my dad last year," and I feel really privileged that people, reach out to me like that. It's quite a lot to bear, even in this short time, but it's, it's wonderful 'cause I feel like the book has given people that outlet where they can, um, just open up a bit more and, and talk about it. So I, I'm glad I explored that, that, the kind of aftermath as well because it's, it's important. It is important. And I'm glad that you said at the end, you get the, you get the joy. I never wanted it to have a completely sad ending. I like bittersweet endings, um, and I think th-there's a celebration to it. I always knew that it would have an ending like that. I never wanted it to just be bleak 'cause I c-can't see the point in a way.

Brett Benner 29:29

I feel like with what you just said, you should have like a, an autoresponse on your email- that just says, "Thank you so much for sharing," and, and you know what I mean? Yeah. Because I imagine-

Ben Reeves 29:39

It's, it's... Yeah. I think it's good that people send those kinds of messages. I do think it's good because it's... If it makes people feel better, great. And I, I, I should, I should do an autoresponse, but at the same time, like, if someone's taking that time to reach out and, and tell me their story, I wanna, I want, I wanna hear it. And I'll get, it'll get, maybe it'll get easier. At least it will, I don't know Maybe to get used to it a little bit, but

Brett Benner 30:01

You'll become like Travis.

Ben Reeves 30:03

Maybe, yeah, 'cause he has to, doesn't he? He has to, um, detach himself a little bit. He still cares. It's a, it's a funny, there's a funny line there of, like, caring, but at the same time I just can't get too deta- too attached because I wouldn't be able to... I'm talking from Travis now. He wouldn't be able to do that job. Um- Correct it'd just be impossible. Y- y- you know? And presumably he's done this job for thousands and thousands of years since the dawn of humanity because he's, he's death. There's gotta be a point where you, you just have to get on with it.

Brett Benner 30:31

Well, and I have to say for the people who have reached out and the people who will continue to reach out, because the book is... Look, it's something that everyone goes through. It's something that affects everyone to some degree or another, and I'm talking more about the idea of loss. Obviously, we all know we're gonna die as much as

Ben Reeves 30:47

we may not

Brett Benner 30:48

want to accept it, it's gonna happen to all of us. But I do think it speaks to, A, the power of the book and the power of just books in general, kind of the intimacy and that feelings that it's going to evoke for people, and the need to kind of commune and talk about it because it is such a powerful thing. It's also the other reason why it's, I think the book is such a great book for, like, a book club or for a group of people to sit and talk with afterwards because it is so universal and it is so personal, and you're touching on things that are deeply affecting. So you've done this to yourself is effectively what I'm saying Yeah.

Ben Reeves 31:21

Yeah, I've made my own bed. Now I've got to lie in it. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett Benner 31:26

Well, Ben, the book is absolutely beautiful. I'm, I'm so thrilled for you, and I said to your publicist, like, I, I feel like I got in late to the game because I started it far after so many people did, but I'm so glad to have discovered it and I'm so glad to, to sit with you today. Um, yeah, it's just really exciting, so congratulations on it. It's a, it's a- Thank you

Ben Reeves 31:46

so

Brett Benner 31:46

much, Brett it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful debut.

Ben Reeves 31:48

I really, I really appreciate that, Brett. Thank you.

Brett Benner 31:52

Thank you again, Ben. And if you like this conversation or other conversations that you've heard on Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode. Also, what would be really helpful is if you can go to your podcast platform of choice and leave the show five stars. And if you have the time, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a review. All these things are really helpful in terms of the podcast algorithms and for helping new people discover the show. I'll be back next week with another episode, and until then, you can always find me on Instagram, YouTube, and Substack at Brett's Book Stack. And as always, thanks for listening