“Breathtaking. . .chillingly beautiful, like postcards from Eden. . .Van Booy’s stories are somehow like paintings the characters walk out of, and keep walking.” — Los Angeles Times
A newly packaged re-issue of Simon Van Booy’s critically acclaimed debut collection, THE SECRET LIVES OF PEOPLE IN LOVE.
In The Secret Lives of People in Love, Simon Van Booy explores the sway of fate and power of memory on the lives of lonely and vulnerable people. With the same spare, economical prose that he brought to his subsequent collection, Love Begins in Winter, winner of the 2009 Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, Van Booy creates a profoundly humane and somber resonance with the assured hand of “a first-rate storyteller” (Newsday). The Secret Lives of People in Love announces the arrival of a major voice in fiction.
Author Info
Simon Van Booy is the author of two novels and two collections of short stories, including The Secret Lives of People in Love and Love Begins in Winter, which won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. He is the editor of three philosophy books and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, and the BBC. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.
Reviews
“Breathtaking . . . chillingly beautiful, like postcards from Eden. . . . Van Booy’s stories are somehow like paintings the characters walk out of, and keep walking.” — Los Angeles Times
“Lovely and genuinely touching....Van Booy’s clean, simple, delicate prose suits the material’s sadness....for all their sombreness, these stories exude an abiding sweetness.... These characters cling to optimism, even to love, despite their frailties and straitened circumstances....This talented author bears watching.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Abandon your family, your children and your friends; resign from your work and your voluntary engagements; let your dinner burn in the oven...and plunge into this book. Real life tastes plastic next to the words of Simon Van Booy.” — Martin Page
“Simon Van Booy’s prose is as economical as it is powerful. His characters are so real—and their stories so poignant—that I yearned to reach out and assure them of my understanding.” — Caroline Upcher
“These stories have at once the solemnity of myth and the offhandedness of happenstance.” — Publishers Weekly
“The stories of Love Begins in Winter are stylistically brilliant and emotionally beautiful. I found myself gasping, literally gasping, at surprises so perfectly attuned as to be inevitable. Simon Van Booy is an extraordinary writer, and this is a book to be read and reread again and again.” — Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route and Rabbits for Food
“Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of the human heart, and he articulates those truths in his stories with pitch-perfect elegance. Love Begins in Winter is a splendid collection, and Van Booy is now a writer on my must-always-read list.” — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitizer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
“Love Begins in Winter” brings to life the wistfulness of youth and the possibilities of young love with clear and graceful prose.” — Jamie Saul, author of Light of Day
