The Secret Lives of People in Love (16 page)

by Simon Van Booy

“One worries, after reading a debut short story collection this breathtaking, what Simon Van Booy could possibly do for an encore. Write something longer? Take up haiku? Wander the world like a sadhu for a few decades and send us another book as chillingly beautiful, like postcards from Eden?”

—
Los Angeles Times

“His sentences are spare, subtle, and freighted, his images fresh…. You see and feel his settings…. A first-rate storyteller.”

—
Newsday

“Lovely and genuinely touching…. Van Booy’s clean, simple, delicate prose suits the material’s sadness…. For all their somberness, 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

“These stories have at once the solemnity of myth and the offhandedness of happenstance.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Resilient characters often emerge from bleak circumstances with an unexpected and completely engaging optimism…. In the strongest [stories], [Van Booy] shows an uncanny ability to create intense moods and emotions within the space of a few poetic paragraphs.”

—
Booklist

“Simon Van Booy’s stories have the power and resonance of poems. They stay with you like a significant memory.”

—Roger Rosenblatt, author of
Making Toast
,
Beet
, and
Lapham Rising

“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, author of
How I Became Stupid

“The Reappearance of Strawberries,” “The World Laughs in Flowers,” “Snow Falls and Then Disappears,” and “Everything Is a Beautiful Trick” were first published in the collection
Love and the Five Senses
. “The Reappearance of Strawberries” first appeared in
The East Hampton Star
. “Some Bloom in Darkness” first appeared in
The Gettysburg Review
. “Where They Hide Is a Mystery” first appeared in
Connecticut Review
.

THE SECRET LIVES OF PEOPLE IN LOVE
. Copyright © 2007 by Simon Van Booy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

EPub Edition © January 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-198797-7

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