The Secret Lives of People in Love
By Simon Van Booy
Short Stories (single author)
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780061766121, March 2010, 208pp.)

The Short of It:

Lovely and quiet.

The Rest of It:

This collection of short stories was sent to me some time ago. I can remember the day clearly. It arrived, I plunked myself down to read the first story, sighed and then placed the book on my nightstand. You might think it odd,  but for me, it was the perfect reaction. The writing in that first story blew me away. I think I was a little bit awestruck and needed to take some time to process the beauty of the words themselves.

What happened next was odd, though.

I did the exact same thing every time I picked it up. There are nineteen stories and over the course of the year, I’d choose one to enjoy. Not every night (obviously) and not even every week, but whenever I felt like it. I just finished the book last month and it was such a pleasure to take the time to really enjoy this one.

These stories deal with people in love… or various stages of love and sometimes (often) loss. They are simply told, yet with beautiful, flowery prose. Here are some examples of the writing:

This morning I woke up and I was fifteen years old. Each year is like putting a new coat over all the old ones. Sometimes, I reach into the pockets of my childhood and pull things out.  (Little Birds)

…her life, like a cloud, split open, and she lay motionless in a rain of moments. (French Artist Killed in Sunday’s Earthquake)

Words fell from their minds like a rain of hard stones, snapping branches of blind desire, trapping the fresh blooms of feeling within the darkness of meaning. (The Mute Ventriloquist)

I really enjoyed peeling away the layers and enjoying this one in small bits. Although it wasn’t my intention to take an entire year to read it, reading it this way seemed proper. These are not stories to rush through. This was my first experience with Van Booy’s writing but it definitely won’t be my last.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.
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