a dedication

I am extremely honoured to announce that Hodder & Stoughton will publish my first book next year. The memoir will be dedicated to my beautiful wife and son and I'll write it on behalf of anyone who has been touched by the pain of loss and grief. This is a press release that the Hodder issued this afternoon.Hodder & Stoughton has acquired a memoir by Benjamin Brooks-Dutton, the writer behind the blog lifeasawidower.com.Hodder non-fiction publisher Hannah Black bought world rights in It’s Not Raining, Daddy, It’s Happy by the recently widowed father. Ajda Vucicevic at Luigi Bonomi Associates concluded the deal. The book will be published in hardback in spring 2014.Following a fruitless search for men in a similar position to himself, widowed young and caring for a grieving toddler, Ben published his first blog post in January 2013, just two months after the tragic death of his 33-year-old wife, Desreen Brooks. His blog quickly generated widespread media coverage and amassed a devoted UK and international audience. Four months on, the blog has now received in excess of half a million views.Ben’s original intention was to try to encourage other men to open up, to challenge perceptions of male grief and to attempt to force a reappraisal of the stiff upper lip being a badge of honour when it comes to loss. His writing, however, soon attracted people from different walks of life united in their own immediate loss, or their care and concern for grieving loved ones.Ben comments, “Within just a couple of days of launching the blog I could see that it was touching many different types of people, not just widowers. All sorts of people started to get in touch. Women and not just men. Old not just young. People who had lost their husbands or wives within a week of me and my son losing Desreen. Parents who had lost children. Partners who had not yet started grieving because their terminally ill husbands or wives were still finding the strength to hang on. Teachers who had found some solace in how to deal with children who had lost or were facing loss. People wanting to understand how to help their own loved ones who are suffering loss. And the list continues to grow.”Through the book, Ben aims to give people a real insight into raw grief, documenting it as it happens, as well as helping people who are either suffering the pain of loss or attempting to help friends and family through it.Hannah Black says, ‘Ben is a most gifted writer. Through the fog of his and his young son’s grief, there is emerging an almost unbearably truthful and articulate account of what it means to lose someone you love and how you can possibly learn to live with such a loss. All of us at Hodder feel privileged to have been entrusted with such an extraordinary record. ‘The book's title takes its name from a quote from Ben's two-year-old son, Jackson, whose positive outlook on life is helping their family work through the pain of their grief.