Lucas Oakeley: Passage Reading – Nearly Departed

Author and Boys Book Club co-founder Lucas Oakeley reads from his debut novel Nearly Departed in this passage episode of Character Study.

Lucas reads the chapter What Dreams May Come, in which grief-stricken Joel describes a recurring dream to his therapist: a woman on the opposite platform at a train station, both reading the same edition of Wuthering Heights, their eyes meeting across the tracks just as the trains pull in opposite directions. Then he wakes up and does it all over again. Freya and Lucas then talk about why he always tries to make his therapist laugh, what happens when they don't, and how he edits his drafts — removing three or four jokes per paragraph until the ones that remain land harder for the space around them.

This is a conversation about grief, dreams and why you're allowed to be funny and sincere at the same time.

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📘 Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley

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