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Hello Darkness
Hello Darkness tells the story of facing a challenge and meeting it with grace, intelligence, wit and resilience. Wells has added new material (as well as the original Facebook posts) looking back on his life, including the time he became know as 'The Man Who Shocked The Nation'. This is a book for anyone who wonders who they will respond when the end is near.
Peter Wells is an award-winning writer and film maker. He has won the Montana NZ Book Award for Biography for his memoir, Long Loop Home and the NZ Book Award for his short stories, Dangerous Desires. Desperate Remedies, a feature film he co-wrote and co-directed won many awards. In 1998, along with Stephanie Johnson, he founded the most successful book festival in NZ, the Auckland Writers Festival. In 2006 he was made a Member of The Order of NZ for services to film and literature.
Peter Wells is an award-winning writer and film maker. He has won the Montana NZ Book Award for Biography for his memoir, Long Loop Home and the NZ Book Award for his short stories, Dangerous Desires. Desperate Remedies, a feature film he co-wrote and co-directed won many awards. In 1998, along with Stephanie Johnson, he founded the most successful book festival in NZ, the Auckland Writers Festival. In 2006 he was made a Member of The Order of NZ for services to film and literature.
244 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2019
38 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 25, 2021
this is a diary of peter's cancer & peter started writing about his illness on facebook.
honestly such a very personal read and its deeply moving. i dont usually read memoirs but its a humbling experience to read this along with real-life pics & peter's wrtiting has captured the very essence of living with cancer.
one of the most moving things about this book is the joy of small things - stroking a cat, the quiet before sunrise, talking to a friend - and the hearbreak that these pleasures will be curtailed.
personally bc of what i have been through, its always an eye opener for me to read stories about/from people that do not have much time to live. made me feel like i shouldnt take my life for granted - its always has been a constant reminder for me ((in a good way)) to keep going and live in the moment.
"the adventure of writing about it is something i never planned or thought of, it just happened - a response to the enveloping darkness of night"
peter passed away one week after he launched this book. rest peacefully peter. ✨
honestly such a very personal read and its deeply moving. i dont usually read memoirs but its a humbling experience to read this along with real-life pics & peter's wrtiting has captured the very essence of living with cancer.
one of the most moving things about this book is the joy of small things - stroking a cat, the quiet before sunrise, talking to a friend - and the hearbreak that these pleasures will be curtailed.
personally bc of what i have been through, its always an eye opener for me to read stories about/from people that do not have much time to live. made me feel like i shouldnt take my life for granted - its always has been a constant reminder for me ((in a good way)) to keep going and live in the moment.
"the adventure of writing about it is something i never planned or thought of, it just happened - a response to the enveloping darkness of night"
peter passed away one week after he launched this book. rest peacefully peter. ✨
February 4, 2019
I'll write more about this with time in a longer review - but this is an important book. And the best I've read in some time. It started life as a series of Facebook posts. Then became longer, edited essays. Now it's a book. Peter Wells, a wonderful writer and talented filmmaker, explains his terminal illness, living with the diagnosis, understanding it. But this is not at all a cancer diary. This is a timeline through which Peter flashes back to parts of his earlier life and ponders the big question. Through it he has built a community. The design and care and look of the book all important too. But it's the content. A philosophical personal essay. A wonderful narrative tone emerges. So full of heart. Full to bursting. A must-have. A must-read.
February 25, 2019
Peter Wells felt unwell while on a trip overseas and on his return to New Zealand made an appointment with a doctor who ordered a PSA test. When it came back he was told he had prostate cancer and it had spread into his bones, giving him the symptoms he had experienced while on holiday.
He soon found himself in Auckland hospital to undergo intensive treatment in an attempt to arrest the cancer. He began writing of his experience on daily posts on Facebook, which were also reprinted on The Spinoff, and later published into a book “Hello Darkness”.
In his Foreword Wells explains “This book, then, is the story of six months in my life, told in diary segments……not merely the sum of the original FB posts and the Spinoff version ……I have added in private diary musings I did not put up on FB.”
The November 15,2017, post is accompanied with a view from Wells’ hospital room and the photographs throughout the book include many from his youth, as well as friends and family and special places which have helped shape the man, and add to the story.
Peter Wells is an award winning author and filmmaker, and most recently Hello Darkness won the 2018 Media Voyager Award for best personal essay, the work being described as “Wry, acute and confessional but, most of all wise.”
I found this an interesting but at times an agonizing read, having brothers as well as my husband requiring treatment for prostate issues. It is however a beautifully written, honest account of a man who at times was in great pain but still clinging desperately to life. In his final chapter entitled Down to Daybreak, Wells said “ I began to see daily life itself was a form of a gift- just to be alive was a prescient thing…..I also had this constant almost shrill sense of astonishment at just being alive.”
So it’s a book about taking stock, looking back to what matters in life, but also forwards, towards coming to terms with the remainder of life.
He soon found himself in Auckland hospital to undergo intensive treatment in an attempt to arrest the cancer. He began writing of his experience on daily posts on Facebook, which were also reprinted on The Spinoff, and later published into a book “Hello Darkness”.
In his Foreword Wells explains “This book, then, is the story of six months in my life, told in diary segments……not merely the sum of the original FB posts and the Spinoff version ……I have added in private diary musings I did not put up on FB.”
The November 15,2017, post is accompanied with a view from Wells’ hospital room and the photographs throughout the book include many from his youth, as well as friends and family and special places which have helped shape the man, and add to the story.
Peter Wells is an award winning author and filmmaker, and most recently Hello Darkness won the 2018 Media Voyager Award for best personal essay, the work being described as “Wry, acute and confessional but, most of all wise.”
I found this an interesting but at times an agonizing read, having brothers as well as my husband requiring treatment for prostate issues. It is however a beautifully written, honest account of a man who at times was in great pain but still clinging desperately to life. In his final chapter entitled Down to Daybreak, Wells said “ I began to see daily life itself was a form of a gift- just to be alive was a prescient thing…..I also had this constant almost shrill sense of astonishment at just being alive.”
So it’s a book about taking stock, looking back to what matters in life, but also forwards, towards coming to terms with the remainder of life.
June 17, 2019
DNF because the subject matter is too close to home at the moment.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews