Category Archives: Benediction

Jim Arnold Books

Here’s a current list of my books, which I publish through Eureka Street Press.



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“Benefits” Backstory Element: Prostate Cancer

One of the major backstory elements in my novel “Benefits” is the fact that the main character, Ben Schmidt, is a prostate cancer survivor.

“Benefits” is a sequel to my first novel “Benediction.” (Although I don’t think it’s required reading to understand “Benefits,” I’m sure it helps.) That first novel was written as a way for me to process what was going on with my body. Indeed, I am a prostate cancer survivor myself.

Why “Benediction”

I’d written creatively prior to the novels — but the fiction was limited to movie and TV scripts. I didn’t think my cancer story lent itself to those forms. Hence, “Benediction.” The action in that novel is primarily the story of Ben Schmidt working his way through prostate cancer treatment. Of course, there’s a few side plots involving sex, work intrigue, family relationships, and what not. Did I mention there was sex?

The cover of Jim Arnold's novel "Benediction" prior to a reading at the now-gone Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco, 2009.
“Benediction” on display before a reading at the (now gone) Different Light Bookstore on Castro Street in San Francisco.

Why “Benefits”

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Sex and lots of it. Because I like it and also because that’s one of the things that changes a lot for men post-prostate cancer. Thus, while “Benediction” took Ben through diagnosis and treatment of his cancer, “Benefits” follows Ben in the aftermath. As in: what is it like to live with the long-term effects of incontinence and ED (erectile dysfunction)?

So in “Benefits,” these side effects are just ongoing parts of Ben’s persona. They’re the things he deals with every day. Should he drop an erectile dysfunction pill in his pocket just in case the opportunity for sex presents itself? Will he be doing something sufficiently physical (working out, walking a lot or standing for a long time, etc.)? Stuffing a thin incontinence pad in his underwear might be a really good idea.

Those are just two of the realities former prostate cancer patients endure. In presenting a character that has this history, I hoped to enlighten those who are unaware as well as acknowledge those of us who live as prostate cancer survivors.

Cover of Jim Arnold's novel "Benefits" shows a street scene on Cole Street in San Francisco.
The hero of “Benefits” is a prostate cancer survivor. But heck, it’s mostly a comedy!

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National Boyfriend’s Day – Character Biography of Jake Brosseau from “Benefits”

National Boyfriends Day is October 3, 2019, so it’s a perfect time to clue readers in on the working character biography I wrote and used when constructing Ben Schmidt’s sexy boyfriend/spouse Jake Brosseau.

This morphed over time as I wrote the first book where he appeared as a sexy neighbor (Benediction) and then, they became a couple and time passed and as it is in real life, the fictional character changed a bit and grew. There is no real-life Jake in my life, though there was a sexy person in San Francisco that provided an initial “spark.”

Here’s what I used for Jake Brosseau:

Jake Brosseau Character Biography

Jake (Ben’s boyfriend) Sketch character biography:

  • He wants to keep Ben as his life partner
  • He wants to sell some of his paintings, gain some notoriety as an SF artist.
  •  Jake is 39, a few years younger than Ben. Afraid of turning 40. He’s HIV positive, and has been for 10 years or more. He’s about 5-10, reddish brown hair, green eyes, tan, hairy body, naturally muscular, very, very attractive. Family was French Canadian who came to California for Gold Rush, so he grew up in the foothill area, a very redneck area where his family still lives. He did not fit in. LAST NAME IS BROSSEAU.
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      His job is as a display and window dresser for a Wilkes Bashford type place (I call it Sloane & Bradford), the tony men’s store in Union Square. He’s also a freelance interior designer, and he hopes someday to have his own business doing that and stop the store work. He’s got a very interesting style, it’s unusual so he gets unusual clients.

      Jake is quite artistic and has a really good sense of himself, which is what attracted Ben to him overall. He’s like a rock. Although at times, he too can be temperamental and just blow up, which always comes as a surprise.

      He’s afraid of the HIV and that he may someday get really sick although the meds have worked so far. Sometimes he has reactions to his meds. Perhaps initial SIDE EFFECTS of protease inhibitors. (i.e., choose from lipodystrophy, nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, neuropathy, high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides)

      His mother is dead. His father lives on a small farm and is an alcoholic. He doesn’t grow anything, he collects social security. He has two sisters, one lives in Santa Cruz, the other lives in the Philadelphia area. He talks to them on the phone a lot, he’s quite close to them. He’s the youngest.

      Jake, being so attractive, has had many men in his life. He moved to the Castro when he was still a teenager and has really grown up there, through the AIDS crisis of the 80s and is a survivor (perhaps he heard the siren song of Harvey Milk, who famously said, that if you live in a homophobic area, you can “always move to San Francisco”). He also projects that survivor’s strength and wisdom through his quiet demeanor which attracts people to him.

      On the street, he knows everybody. That both fascinates Ben and makes him jealous.

10 years later, for “Benefits” – Jake finally does have his own gallery. It’s called Jake Brosseau, just his name, because, you know, he does know everybody. It should be in SOMA, somewhere trendy. Let’s put it on Utah Street, near where Dolby was, near 16th and Utah. Where there are bow & truss buildings that house art galleries. He has a car now. It’s a black Prius.

So that’s what I worked from – obviously it’s a sketch, and didn’t use all of it but it’s there to mine if necessary. There’s a lot more to Jake, I hope to let that get out in another “Ben” book.

Goodreads Giveaway:

Goodreads Giveaway active until October 14, 2019. Enter here.

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“Benefits” – Reasons to Write this Sequel/Installment

Benediction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure, actually, if it’s a sequel or if a better definition would be the second in a series of books about Ben Schmidt and his life, family and circle of friends.

It doesn’t really matter for this post because I can still tell you why I wrote this book “Benefits:”

  • wasn’t done with the characters –
  • wanted to find out what happened to the main character, who had a life-threatening illness at the close of “Benediction”
  • seems short sighted to abandon characters when so much more could happen to them
  • The story resonated with a great many people, who saw themselves in the milieu or who identified with the characters
  • Ben is my alter-ego and it’s very comfortable for me to write in his voice
  • I had ideas about what happens next to him and other characters
  • readers would ask me what happened to Ben, since I left it unresolved, and I didn’t have a great answer
  • there is life and love after prostate cancer, and I wanted to process that through my writing and also deliver that message, in other words, what it’s like to have an active love life as a prostate cancer survivor
  • and maybe the best part if you’re just finding this — you don’t have to read the original to understand the sequel – Benefits can stand on its own.

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Talk I gave a few years ago on the original book and the reason behind it – prostate cancer.

 

 

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Goodreads Review of “The Motel Life”

Here’s a quick book review – I thought this was a great read. I’m working on something new, something I have to call fiction though it’s based on an old road trip I took myself in the 90s. Working title is “Wanderslut 1996: Based on a Mostly True Story.”

I was looking for road trip novels I hadn’t yet read and was looking for inspiration, and this is one that I found. Awesome. And, never fear, the novel “Benefits,” the sequel to “Benediction,” is on track to be published by summer 2019.

 

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My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was shocked I’ve only just recently found out about this book – in a google search to find road trip novels, it came up, sounded like my cup of tea, so I read it. The author has a remarkable, distinctive voice. Reminded me so much of something Denis Johnson might have done with a heaping slice of the Coen Brothers. Just a really sweet and sad tale of two lost souls and their equally lost compatriots. My favorite thing is the flights of fancy the main character Frank has, making up stories for his own entertainment and that of his brother Jerry Lee. For me, that’s when this novel becomes magical. There’s a very specific sense of place with Reno and Elko, sense memory of what winter is like, golly, there’s even a saved rescue dog. I highly recommend this and look forward to reading more of Vlautin. Also, as someone who has some experience in 12-Step, this reads a lot like the part of the traditional share that’s “What it Was Like” – if it were a novel. Then, of course, there’s the “What Happened” and “What it’s Like Now” – we do get a sense of some thing that happened, but the “what it’s like now” is left to the reader to imagine. I’m OK with that. But I still cried a bit at the end.

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Benediction: Buena Vista Park

San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park — beautiful, notorious, historical and, well, mountainous — is a key location in my novel Benediction.

On a recent trip to San Francisco, I was reminded of its beauty. I miss hiking up there. Pretty, yes?
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Steps in Buena Vista Park

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“Benediction” Sequel is in the Works

Bndctn_Cvr_R3_2_2 OK, so I finally finally started on the sequel to “Benediction” over the weekend. Timeframe: 2017. What’s it about? It is up to you to find the right viagra no prescription fast kind of product. check that now online levitra So make sure you have the doctor s prescription over there but there would be the required knowledge one will need before having the medicine. Hence, men with diabetes usually have discover that cheap online levitra other associated clinical conditions including overweight or obesity. Actually, two decisions that have consequences on each other. on line viagra I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you, and that would be no fun, now would it?

I will give a hint though: #BenSchmidtLives. Stay tuned.

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End of Summer, Jim Arnold E-book Countdown Sale! Aug. 30 – September 1

Been wanting an e-book copy of Benediction or The Forest Dark?

Something new from Kindle (yeah, I know it’s Amazon. The world is not perfect.) They’ve got a new promotion called Kindle Countdown Deals.

And The Deal is this:

Both titles will sell for just .99, that’s less than a buck, folks, from early Saturday, August 30 to Sunday noon PDT. Then, the price goes up to $1.99 (still super cheap!) till Monday, Labor Day September 1, till 11:00 p.m. PDT when the price reverts back to $4.99 (which is also pretty cheap if you ask me, but hey. . .)

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(pls click on book cover to link to Kindle page.)

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26 Hours in Palm Springs

Just got back from about 26 Hours in Palm Springs – a whirlwind, but a fun one.

Among the activities, I:

  • went to Elmer’s Diner (a must on any visit to Palm Springs)
  • saw some friends, old and new and potential
  • had a nice cuppa froyo, not once but twice
  • shopped at Target (yes, I did!)
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  • saw a Big Parade on a beautiful sunny morning
  • met Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • saw Richard Simmons walking down the street
  • went to a birthday dinner for my friend Tim
  • and signed copies of “The Forest Dark” and “Benediction” at the Palm Springs Pride Festival Author’s Village.

Thanks again to Rick and all the good people at QTrading Company, who support gay writers in a big way. Love being part of that event and look forward to future years!

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Kindle MatchBook, Amazon Finally Bundles Print And E-Books (and you, dear customer, get a better deal)

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A totally self-serving post – wait, aren’t they all? Well, I guess not, cause this one sure benefits Amazon more than it will ever in this galaxy benefit me.

Starting in October, if you want both the print book and the e-book of selected titles, you can get them at a discount when purchased together. Seems like a no-brainer, right? I guess it just took awhile for this to happen.

One of the nice things about the deal is that it’s retroactive – meaning, if you bought a print version of say, Benediction, back in 2009 and are just dying to have the e-book version of it in Kindle, you can get it for (I think) $1.99. Less than your morning latte, folks – and, there’s no tip jar.  
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Or, if you’re just buying The Forest Dark for the first time, you can get both a print book and the e-book together for under a sweet ten-spot. There might even be a few pennies change (which you can then use for that latte jar – – does anyone else think that those tip jars are getting a little out of hand?)

ADL 1 - Version 2 So you don’t have to wait, I mean, like I said above, it’s all retroactive, so you can go and buy the version you don’t have for the discount at any time. Amazon is all-knowing and they know what you paid for it before. (I’m sure you, like me, feel better knowing the NSA knows my book buying tastes, and hopefully Mr. Cheney has learned something from this book list.)

Oh and you DO know you don’t actually have to have a Kindle device to read Kindle books, right? I still don’t have one of the official Kindle contraptions — but I’ve got the FREE app on my laptop Macbook, on my Android phone, and now even on the Nook I inherited from my aunt. Amazing world, eh, where a Kindle app works on a Nook. But it does.

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