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
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.
Love Begins in Winter” brings to life the wistfulness of youth and the possibilities of young love with clear and graceful prose.
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.
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.
Breathtaking . . . chillingly beautiful, like postcards from Eden. . . . Van Booy’s stories are somehow like paintings the characters walk out of, and keep walking.
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.
Breathtaking . . . chillingly beautiful, like postcards from Eden. . . . Van Booy’s stories are somehow like paintings the characters walk out of, and keep walking.
A breadth of experience and setting distinguishes this somber first collection of 18 very short stories by New York-based Van Booy. "Little Birds" is narrated by a teenage boy of uncertain parentage who sketches his life with his devoted foster father, Michel, in working-class Paris: "It is the afternoon of my birthday, but still the morning of my life. I am walking on the Pont des Arts." In "Some Bloom in Darkness," an aging railroad station clerk's witness of a violent scene between a man and woman translates in his mind into an infatuation with a store mannequin. Other tales are set in Rome ("I live in Rome where people sit by fountains and kiss"), small villages in Cornwall or Wales, and in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Van Booy's characters are shipwrecked by fate and memory but tarry on, like the narrator of "Distant Ships," a lifelong Royal Mail loader who stopped speaking after the death of his son 20 years earlier, or the homeless man chased by ghosts in "The Shepherd on the Rock," who aims to "live out the last of my life" at John F. Kennedy International Airport. These tales have at once the solemnity of myth and the offhandedness of happenstance. (May)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Lonely, vulnerable protagonists grieve in Paris, New York, Wales, Rome, Kentucky and other locales. The 18 brief, elliptical stories in this debut collection rely heavily on mood and lyricism. Their narrative strands are often gossamer. In "Distant Ships," a Welsh package sorter agonizes over his son's long-ago death, which chased away his wife and made him forswear speaking. "Apples" involves a Russian-born cobbler mourning his wife and daughter; he nurtures the apple seedlings indoors through winter, then plants them in a vacant lot year after year, creating an orchard that spawns Brooklyn's only apple festival. Young Edgar, bereft after his mother's demise, meets a mysterious turbaned man who teaches him how to reconnect to the sensory world in "Where They Hide Is a Mystery." Van Booy's clean, simple, delicate prose suits the material's sadness: It's hard to imagine a more arresting precis of isolation than, "Serge's only other friend was a blind tobacconist from Ukraine called Peter, who when not being beaten by his wife played obsolete military songs on the accordion." Yet for all their somberness, these stories exude an abiding sweetness. The characters cling to optimism, even to love, despite their frailties and straitened circumstances. Marred at times by sameness of tone and occasional lapses into preciosity, but lovely and genuinely touching. This talented author bears watching.
