Getting The Paper

by Robert Benefiel

Getting The Paper is a collection of new works by the author Robert Benefiel that chooses to reflect upon the beauty of the mundane and the normal conditions of someone existing on the lower end of the monetary spectrum, regardless of if they are an artist or not. Straddling neither absolute poverty, nor being able to escape debt, Getting The Paper chooses to embrace the idea of just getting by in a world that is continually held together by words and spit. Whether it’s having a deeper than usual conversation with someone taking your fast food order, or an incredible artist like Vivian Maier eating raw canned food and dying in anonymity while her life works are rotting in a storage unit, this book chooses to put denser ideas aside for straight forward revelations. Themes such as work, depression, struggle, relationships both male and female, and expression, attempt to explain how even when things can be so dismal, people have a tendency to still carry on, and it is through these topics that the author creates a more direct revelatory process where an acceptance can be found in recognizing both the necessity and the torturous aspects of normalcy while living at the bare minimum, or lower, to simply say you are still alive. It’s knowing life is not pretty, but that you still can’t stop staring at it, and eventually if you look long enough you can find something beautiful in it to keep you around maybe a little longer.

274 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2018