A Note from Greg Gaines, Author of This Book
To Schenley, which Benson is not
I have no idea how to write this stupid book.
Can I just be honest with you for one second? This is the literal truth. When I first started writing this book, I tried to start it with the sentence "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." I genuinely thought that I could start this book that way. I just figured, it's a classic book-starting sentence. But then I couldn't even figure out how you were supposed to follow that up. I stared at the computer for an hour and it was all I could do not to have a colossal freak-out. In desperation, I tried messing with the punctuation and italicization, like:
It was the best of times? And it was the worst of times?!!
What the hell does that even mean? Why would you even think to do that? You wouldn't, unless you had a fungus eating your brain, which I guess I probably have.
The point is, I have no idea what I'm doing with this book. And the reason for that is, I'm not a writer. I'm a filmmaker. So now you're probably asking yourself:
1. Why is this guy writing a book and not making a film?
2. Does it have to with the brain-fungus thing?
Answer Key
1. I'm writing a book instead of making a film because I have retired from filmmaking forever. Specifically, I retired after making the Worst Film Ever Made. Usually the goal is to retire after making the best possible thing you can make-or, even better, die-but I did the opposite. A brief outline of my career would look like this:
i. Many Bad Films
ii. A Mediocre Film
iii. Some OK Films
iv. A Decent Film
v. Two or Three Good Films
vi. A Bunch of Pretty Great Films
vii. The Worst Film Ever Made
Fin. How bad was that film? It killed someone, that's how bad it was. It caused an actual death. You'll see.
2. Let's just say that it would explain a lot of things if there were a fungus eating my brain. Although that fungus would have to have been eating my brain for basically my entire life. At this point it's possible that the fungus has gotten bored and left, or died from malnutrition or something.
I do actually want to say one other thing before we get started with this horrifyingly inane book. You may have already figured out that it's about a girl who had cancer. So there's a chance you're thinking, "Awesome! This is going to be a wise and insightful story about love and death and growing up. It is probably going to make me cry literally the entire time. I am so fired up right now." If that is an accurate representation of your thoughts, you should probably try to smush this book into a garbage disposal and then run away. Because here's the thing: I learned absolutely nothing from Rachel's leukemia. In fact, I probably became stupider about life because of the whole thing.
I'm not really putting this very well. My point is this: This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever. And, unlike most books in which a girl gets cancer, there are definitely no sugary paradoxical single-sentence-paragraphs that you're supposed to think are deep because they're in italics. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about sentences like this:
The cancer had taken her eyeballs, yet she saw the world with more clarity than ever before.
Barf. Forget it. For me personally, things are in no way more meaningful because I got to know Rachel before she died. If anything, things are less meaningful. All right?
So I guess we should just start.
(I just realized that you may not know what "fin" means. It is a filmmaking term. Specifically, it is French for "This movie is over, which is good, because it probably confused the hell out of you, because it was made by French people.")
Fin for real this time.