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Benediction

door Jim Arnold

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Benediction unfolds during the twilight of dotcom-frenzied San Francisco, where globe-hopping Ben Schmidt, a gay, recovering alcoholic who heads marketing at a trendy software firm, just found out he's got prostate cancer. Ben's sleeping with Jake, the sexy artist upstairs, while carrying on a little friends-with-benefits liaison with hot Argentinean Eric. His long-held dream of directing a movie has finally happened, too – and all this while sober. His enviable life takes an unplanned detour with the cancer news while simultaneously, Ben's work nemesis maneuvers to destroy his reputation and get him fired. Despite being hit with all this, Ben, with his indomitable spirit and darkly skewed sense of humor, learns to navigate the strange reality of cancerworld just as his movie begins its festival tour and the work situation escalates. With the happy outcome of any of these situations far from certain, Ben struggles to figure out what love and friendship really mean as he fights for literal survival – all the while dealing with those who want to give advice, including friends who've passed on – yet can't resist popping back in with words of dubious wisdom.… (meer)
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Toon 4 van 4
An interesting book, won in the Goodreads Beneditcion contest. At first the character was kind of likable with the flaws that make humans human, as the book progressed the story was good, while in other parts the main character was not likable, with taking what he had for granted. ( )
  Preston.Kringle | Nov 23, 2018 |
Free on Amazon!!!
  SheReadsALot | Jun 20, 2016 |
Benediction is about Ben Schmidt, a forty-something gay man, living in San Francisco. Ben is successful at work, promoting his first independent movie on the side, seeing his handsome younger upstairs neighbor, over decade sober when his doctor tells him that he has a fatal form of prostrate cancer rare in men his age. Because the fatal form of prostrate cancer typically strikes older men who are not expected to live long enough to die from it, it tends to go untreated, or treated only slightly. But Ben is so young he has to face surgery, followed by incontinence, impotence and infertility all of which send him racing into the nearest bar. Once Jake, the handsome younger upstairs neighbor, finds out he's drinking again, Ben is on his own.

This could all be very heavy stuff, but Mr. Arnold never lets his main character sink into self-pity for too long. Even when he's drunk Ben has too much going on to spend page after page wallowing in regret. He has too much to do. His movie is doing well on the film festival circuit, office politics at work drag him into a knock-down fight to keep his job, he has to hide his drinking and he insists on maintaining an active sex life even after surgery forces him to start taking Viagra and to wear adult diapers. So much is going on in his life, so much of it is going wrong, that he finds it difficult to make time to deal with his cancer.

It's no wonder he starts seeing ghosts.

Mr. Arnold understands that a novel like Benediction lives or dies on how much sympathy the reader has for the narrator. The book takes the reader to some fairly dark places and then makes a few jokes about the trip. If we don't like the narrator, we're not going to see the trip through to its end. I liked Ben Schmidt. His life is messy. The way he treats his cancer is messy. His illness doesn't lead to an epiphany; it just makes everything worse. But Ben's sense of humor, which was there all along, sees the reader through to the end of the book.

Benediction deals frankly with some uncomfortable stuff. So uncomfortable that I'll admit I was a little nervous about it. Can a gay man maintain an active sex life after prostrate surgery? That question alone probably sends many readers heading for the hills. For the longest time it appeared that falling off the wagon was not going to have a negative impact on Ben's life. He was so wrapped up in dealing with his cancer, promoting his movie, negotiating office politics, cruising--lots of cruising, that I began to wonder where Mr. Arnold was going with his narrator's alcoholism. Ben does eventually end up literally in the gutter due to his drinking, but it's not a drastic, dramatic dive to the bottom the moment he takes a sip of liquor. It takes a while. For a long time, Ben is able to maintain. I imagine that's a common experience.

In the end, Benediction is anything but a common novel. It's probably not one you'll find at your local chain bookstore, unless your local chain bookstore is in the right neighborhood, but it's one that is well worth looking out for. Benediction grew on me. Ben Schmidt grew on me. His story would make a terrific movie. ( )
  CBJames | Feb 21, 2010 |
It's really difficult to disconnect the author, Jim Arnold, from his character, Ben Schmidt. They have so many traits in common and Ben comes out so strong from the page of Arnold's novel, that it was really like reading a personal journal more than a fictional novel.

Ben is a wanna-be-director, with actually a first movie going out on Festivals all around the world, a nice work in San Francisco, an handsome boyfriend,Jake, living in the attic of the Victorian house where he has a first floor apartment, and an affair on the side with Eric, and nice guy who is always ready to have sex when Ben wants something different than maybe too perfect Jake. At mid-forthy Ben seems to have the perfect dream life for every modern gay man, but he is not happy. He has a constant desire to ruin his own happiness, and his relationship wth Jake is a perfect example of that: Ben has the chance to have a perfect life and he is trying to destroy it. If nothing else happened, I think Ben would have never understood that. It was his own right to destroy his life since he has the power to do so.

But then that power is taken off from him. Ben discovers to have prostate cancer. And it's bad. Suddenly his life is crashing around him and he has no power on that. He can't do anything if not wait for the next tragedy to struck. And life is no more good for him. When he is down and without chance to fight back, everything he thought due in his previous life is put at risk: his job, his boyfriend, his passing lovers, even his apartment, with the small threat of mice. When Ben had everything, he didn't know what he really wanted, now that he is on the edge to loose everything, he will have the chance to understand what is really important for him. In a way tragedy helps Ben, freeing him from all the unnecessary things, he will have an enough clear view to see what it really matters.

I didn't expect to enjoy the romance in this book like I did, and truth be told, at first I didn't like so much Ben. But in a way he got better with the story, and I liked that he didn't come out as an hero. There is nothing of heroic in Ben, he is a real man struggling against the world with only the strength of a normal man. And he doesn't cling on his friends, he tries to find the strength inside him. I liked that, amidst all the tragedy, Ben realized that love was the answer, not for the cancer, but at least to give a reason to his life.

Benediction is not an easy book to read, above all if you had an experience with cancer. It's not all roses for Ben, it's not that, since he has cancer, everything else has to go smoothly for him, it's not that people who dislike him suddenly step back. Ben has not only to fight the cancer but also all the other small and big trouble people have in their everyday life. He has to continue to worry for everything he worried before and plus he has not the cancer. That is the strength of Ben, being able to face all and take the right decision.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439248575/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
  elisa.rolle | Nov 7, 2009 |
Toon 4 van 4
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Benediction unfolds during the twilight of dotcom-frenzied San Francisco, where globe-hopping Ben Schmidt, a gay, recovering alcoholic who heads marketing at a trendy software firm, just found out he's got prostate cancer. Ben's sleeping with Jake, the sexy artist upstairs, while carrying on a little friends-with-benefits liaison with hot Argentinean Eric. His long-held dream of directing a movie has finally happened, too – and all this while sober. His enviable life takes an unplanned detour with the cancer news while simultaneously, Ben's work nemesis maneuvers to destroy his reputation and get him fired. Despite being hit with all this, Ben, with his indomitable spirit and darkly skewed sense of humor, learns to navigate the strange reality of cancerworld just as his movie begins its festival tour and the work situation escalates. With the happy outcome of any of these situations far from certain, Ben struggles to figure out what love and friendship really mean as he fights for literal survival – all the while dealing with those who want to give advice, including friends who've passed on – yet can't resist popping back in with words of dubious wisdom.

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