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    Everyday Things: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    Everyday Things: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    Everyday Things: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    Ebook30 pages31 minutes

    Everyday Things: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love

    By Simon Van Booy

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    About this ebook

    The Secret Lives of People in Love is the first short story collection by award-winning writer Simon Van Booy. These stories, set in Kentucky, New York, Paris, Rome, and Greece, are a perfect synthesis of intensity and atmosphere. Love, loss, human contact, and isolation are Van Booy's themes. In radiant prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world.

    Included in this updated P.S. edition is the new story "The Mute Ventriloquist."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 23, 2010
    ISBN9780062001917
    Everyday Things: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    Author

    Simon Van Booy

    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.

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      Book preview

      Everyday Things - Simon Van Booy

      Everyday Things

      A short story from Everyday Things

      Simon Van Booy

      Dedication

      To Maddie

      Contents

      Dedication

      Everyday Things

      Acknowledgments

      An Excerpt from Tales of Accidental Genius

      About the Author

      Praise

      Credits

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      EVERYDAY THINGS

      For a moment after waking up, Thomas was only vaguely aware that he was alive. Then, like the shock of cold water hitting his body, Thomas remembered that his wife’s sister had telephoned during the night, that they had spoken briefly and nothing had been resolved.

      He lifted the blanket off his body and waded through a gray light that had seeped through the curtains and into the room. He looked at the telephone with disbelief and then made a pot of tea. While it was brewing, he sat on his bed and fought to remember a dream. He tried piecing it together, but it was as though a feast had taken place during the night in his honor and he had awoken with only a few crumbs. He looked at the telephone again.

      He could hear rain spraying the window and decided to write his letter of resignation. He sat at his desk. He swept aside bills and the report he would never finish, then pulled a crisp sheet of paper from the bed of the printer. After finishing a cup of tea, he began to write. He could feel a skin of sugar upon his teeth and after writing his own address, realized he could not steady his hand. It shook like

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