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    Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories
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    Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories
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    Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories
    Ebook206 pages3 hours

    Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories

    By Simon Van Booy

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “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 and Severance

    A new collection of stories from award-winning writer Simon Van Booy that explores the beauty of connection and the anguish of loss.

    In Love Begins in Winter, Simon Van Booy offers intimate scenes of tragic loss, redemptive tales of unlikely connection, and breathtaking moments that never really end. These stories, set around the world, are a perfect synthesis of grace, intensity, atmosphere, and compassion.

    From a famous French cellist who heals the heart of a lost woman to a suitor who polishes eggs, from heroic gypsies to generous gondoliers who can sing, Van Booy writes eloquently about the difficult choices we make in order to maintain our humanity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 12, 2009
    ISBN9780061879234
    Unavailable
    Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories
    Author

    Simon Van Booy

    Simon Van Booy has written more than a dozen works of fiction (including Night Came with Many Stars and The Presence of Absence) and is the editor of three volumes of philosophy. Raised in rural North Wales, Simon currently lives between London and New York, where he is a volunteer EMT for Central Park Medical Unit and RVAC. In early 2020, he rescued his first mouse.

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    Reviews for Love Begins in Winter

    4/5

    54 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Easy to read and entertaining collection of short stories.
    • 4/5
      Romantic, bittersweet, and very elegantly written.
    • 1/5
      Much too twee and precious. The author describes himself as a "decadent flâneur," which I think is part of the problem.
    • 4/5
      I was introduced to Simon Van Booy’s work through a fellow blogger, and I purchased this collection of stories with high expectations. I also have a copy of Everything Beautiful Began After waiting for me to dive into, and I am certainly looking forward to that even more after this reading!Simon has an elegantly smooth, lyrical style. The flow of his stories seems to follow the characters’/narrator’s thoughts, and thoughts don’t always run in a chronological or even logical pattern. I can see how some readers will adore this while others may find it a bit disconcerting. There are also some moments where the feel seems to stiffen a bit, perhaps like the author was trying a little too hard or maybe was just a teensy bit too sure of himself. Overall, however, I found his work beautiful, pleasing, and sophisticated.I highlighted several passages in this book, a few of which I am including here. There is no doubt Van Booy certainly has a stunning way with words.“Music helps us understand where we have come from but, more importantly, what has happened to us...inside each note is the love we are unable to express with words.”“Greif is a country where it rains and rains but nothing grows. The dead live somewhere else—wearing the clothes we remember them in.”“Another way to punish myself, to look behind for someone I feel but cannot see.”“If there is such a thing as marriage, it takes place long before the ceremony: in a car on the way to the airport; or as a gray bedroom fills with dawn, one lover watching the other; or as two strangers stand together in the rain with no bus in sight, arms weighed down with shopping bags. You don’t know then. But later you realize—that was the moment.”“It ends quickly so that we value it…”
    • 4/5
      I don't read a lot of short stories. I tend to have a fondness for huge tomes that I strengthen my arms with by dragging them around with me wherever I go (they're too hard to read in bed, though - a problem). I like short stories, but sometimes they just end too fast and I want more. There are exceptions to this - I love Hemingway's spare stories and now I'm adding Simon Van Booy to this list.At their core, these stories are about loneliness, the yearning for connection, the difficulty of making it and keeping it. In many ways these are people who can't quite remove themselves from the center of their own universe, can't quite let go and allow themselves to see what the world has on offer. Loneliness and longing define them and when they find a connection it is one of life's minor miracles for them.All of this could be sentimental and sappy, but in Van Booy's hands it is not. Although at times it feels like he's trying just a little too hard, those moments are far overshadowed by his beautiful use of language. Most of all this reminds me of my Mississippi grandmother, Jesse Scarbrough. My grandfather died relatively young and grandmother continued living her life alone - teaching and, after she retired, traveling all over. She used to always say that she "didn't need an old man to take care of." And then on one of her trips she met her second husband, Vernon. They were both in their seventies and had known each other in college - grandmother and grandaddy double dated with Vernon and his wife. Long story short they fell in love and had about fifteen glorious years together before Vernon died. They were both amazing people - kind, loving, and giving. I can remember always thinking of them at times in my life when I was alone and lonely and felt like that would never change. I'd think, "Remember grandmother - it ain't over 'til its over." They taught me a lot about being open to love and connectedness and living in the joy of that. It's a lovely memory and was quite happy to read stories that evoked that for me. Thank you, Mr. Van Booy.
    • 4/5
      In this superb collection of five stories, Simon Van Booy gives his readers a perpetually moving and emotionally complex ride as he examines several individuals and the relationships that change their lives. First we meet a famous cello player whose loneliness and singularity is abandoned one fleeting moment after a chance meeting with a beautiful and contemplative woman in the titular story, Love Begins in Winter. Next we fall into the midst of a relationship between a young couple who are decidedly against marriage after dually witnessing the death throes of an emotionally starved relationship in the story Tiger, Tiger. Later we travel to Las Vegas where a young boy and his mother are exposed to the tender ministrations of a stranger when they are abandoned for a night of ill-fated gambling in The Missing Statues. Next we’re taken into the fevered heart of a young male gypsy living in rural Ireland as he tries to arrange a chance meeting with the woman of his dreams in the tale The Coming and Going of Strangers. The set concludes with The City of Windy Trees, in which a man named George Frack gets some unexpected and life-changing news with the arrival of a mysterious letter. With Van Booy’s subtle wit and grace, his stories come alive to touch readers in the unexpected soft places of their hearts, proving that the offerings in this collection can be at once provocative and moving.Every year I make a resolution to read more short story collections, and every year I fail miserably. Though my intentions are noble, I always seem to shy away from picking up these types of books off my shelf. Part of the reason I feel so reluctant to dip into short stories is the very nature of their construction. At times, they are just too short for me to really get a feel for the characters and situations that they attempt to house. Last year, I had an unexpected and delighted reaction to Deborah Willis’ short story collection Vanishing, and since reading it, I’ve been more open to the possibility of involving myself in more short story collections. I figure if Willis’ can be that good, there have to be others that I would appreciate as well. Well, I have to admit that I found another star in Simon Van Booy, and now I think I’m back on the short story wagon!Van Booy has a way with the short story, let me tell you. Each offering in this collection is stylistically distinct, with some stories being verbally sparse and enigmatic, and others leaving little emotion to the imagination. The titular story, Love Begins in Winter, had a very French feel to it and was quietly understated while still maintaining a stunning impact. I liked the way all Van Booy’s words and scenes evoked a place and time that was to me unfamiliar, but was the perfect home for his characters. Each story highlighted a longing and desire of a different kind, and though most of the tales had a touch of melancholy about them, they weren’t overwhelmingly sad. All the stories ended on a note of hope, even the strange Tiger, Tiger, which had a twist that I could scarcely believe. And now that I think to categorize it, each of these stories had a subtle twist to them, giving them a little more pizazz and sparkle than your ordinary short story.My favorite story in this collection was definitely The City of Windy Trees. Because of its intense subject matter and the elegant way it was handled, I found my eyes welling up at its climax. It was a touching and bittersweet story, with gentle and eccentric characters who found themselves in a very odd position. I marveled at the way Van Booy created this piece, gently stacking layer upon layer of meaning into a structure of heartbreak and redemption that made its way unerringly towards my heart. Though the other stories were excellent as well, Trees evoked emotions in me that felt carefully orchestrated and complex. And that’s one of the beautiful things about Van Booy’s writing. Though it’s not maudlin or depressing, it creates a host of strong emotions in the reader by gently drawing on emotions that all of us can understand and relate to. It’s rare for me to feel so enamored of a short story collection, but by the end of the book, I felt very close to the characters I was reading about, and though we hadn’t spent a lot of page space together, I contemplated them for hours after I closed the book.One of the reasons Van Booy is so successful in these stories is because he’s not afraid to show his characters in various stages of emotional undress. Their sadness and their joy is palpable and clear, and in many cases, it’s the source of the complexity that I spoke of earlier. Things don’t always go as planned for these characters, and because of that, their natural and organic reactions to their circumstances become focal points. Any author can create a man in love, but few can make his reader ache for the man as he watches his beloved through a thick pane of glass in the window. Another thing I liked was Van Booy’s decision to take some of his stories in unexpected directions. I felt that this gave a lot of depth and relevance to the stories themselves, and created layers of meaning that would otherwise have been neglected. It seemed to be done very casually, but the effect was one that deeply rooted me into the tales themselves.If you are a reluctant reader of short stories, I would definitely recommend Love Begins in Winter to you. Far from being pointless and dry, these stories call up great stores of emotion and pin them securely against the framework of interesting and compelling narratives that you are unlikely to find parallelled anywhere else. I’m a new fan of Van Booy’s writing, and because of his clever extrapolation of events and emotions, I’ll be looking forward to reading more from this talented young author. A great collection that might just revitalize your interest in the short story. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      This turned out to be a wonderful collection of uplifting stories about love, forgiveness, romance, family and hope. Each short story contained a character that had either given up hope or was at a crossroads in their life and had to make a decision or take a leap of faith or sometimes just open their eyes to see the love that was all around them and in some cases had been all along. They were all written wonderfully, very literary and lyrical with wonderful twists and turns that were at once completely surprising and then after some thought completely expected.My favorite story in the collection would have to be the title piece "Love Begins in Winter". It was about two people who had each experienced a great loss in their life and who had only been existing in the years since as they dealt with the blow of it. Only to find at the end of it that they were still alive, that there were others that understood them and that life still went on and they could go on with it.The one I didn't like, and the story that caused this book to lose a star, was the story "Tiger, Tiger". Mainly about a woman who loved a man but found they wanted to be together but remain unmarried for a variety of reasons culminated in his parent's failed marriage. The story talks about the work of a doctor who shared his experiences treating children who wanted to share their love with their parents in various forms of play. It also talks about how she plays by biting a boy she likes as a child so hard he bleeds and closes with her doing the same to her lover and causing him subsequently to drive off the road and into a ditch. I didn't understand that one at all.The rest of the stories were wonderful to read about and talked about the pain and pleasure of love of all sorts, familial, romantic and friendship. It talks about the pain of loss and unfaithfulness, about forgiveness and healing, and about making all sorts of relationships work across all sorts of different family combinations and situations in life. Life is messy, and this book doesn't attempt to pretty it up and tie it with a nice little bow. It shows it for what it is and makes the love to be found there beautiful because of it.
    • 5/5
      There are 5 stories that address the subject of love in this book. Not the rose-tinted romantic love portrayed in Harlequin books, but the dark, gritty and innocent love that abounds in real life.Each story shows a different side of love, the unceasing love one has for a lost sibling, the love that is expressed in music, the love of soulmates, the love and kindness of a man towards a stranger who reminds him of his daughter, the love that surprises and the love suppressed. Each story involves people who are damaged, lost, detached from the world, clutching onto the past, afraid to live or exuberant and confident.The style is somewhat choppy and the language is stark. I found the simplicity focused and lifted the words off the pages with admirable effectiveness. You're drawn to the characters in the stories, you feel their elation, their grief, their anxiety and their wonder. I'll give this 4 stars.
    • 5/5
      And then suddenly an arm of sunlight reached through a high window and opened its hand upon her face. I saw her eyes as clearly as if we had been pressed against one another in a very small space. - from Love Begins in Winter, page 41 -Simon Van Booy’s five story collection, Love Begins in Winter, explores the lives of ordinary men and women who stumble upon love in all its many forms. From the lonely and grieving cellist who literally bumps into the woman who becomes his lover, to the young gypsy boy who lingers outside the home of two girls who have lost their parents … Van Booy’s characters take the reader on a journey of the heart. Threaded through these simple stories are the themes of self identity, grief, longing, and renewal.Van Booy is a poet and a journalist who has lived in London, Wales, Greece, Paris and New York City – and these experiences are apparent in his writing. Lyrical and stylistic, Van Booy’s prose is a bit like listening to a complicated musical performance – at once beautiful and elusive. He sets his characters in places like Montreal in the winter, and in St. Peter’s square in Rome, and along the steep cliffs of Ireland – places that invite introspection.One story in this collection baffled me. Tiger, Tiger is disjointed and confusing, a story about a pediatrician and her boyfriend which draws on childhood memories and behavior. It is the second piece in the collection which, had it not been for the wonderful title story, I might have put the book down. I am glad I did not.My favorite story in the collection is the title story: Love Begins In Winter. From the first, the reader understands that Bruno Bonnet, a cellist, holds grief in his heart from the loss of his childhood friend. He carries her mitten in his pocket at each of his performances.If only one of them recognized me, I could slip from the branches of my life, brush time from my clothes, and begin the long journey across the fields to the place where I first disappeared. A boy leaning crookedly on a gate, waiting for his best friend to get up. The back wheel of Anna’s bicycle still spinning. – from Love Begins in Winter, page 4 -Van Booy captures the loneliness of the protagonist, even when Bruno is in the bustling city of Los Angeles.Further north, approaching Hollywood – hot dog stands with neon arrows and faded paint; tattooed women with chopped black hair buying lip gloss at Hollywood pharmacies; a homeless man pushes a shopping cart full of shoes but he is barefoot. He keeps looking behind. His stomach hangs out. Sometime in the 1960s he was delivered into the trembling hands of his mother. If only it could happen again. Los Angeles is a place where dreams balance forever on the edge of coming true. A city on a cliff held fast by its own weight. – from Love Begins in Winter, page 50 -It is only when the cellist meets Hannah, a woman who still mourns the loss of her brother, that he realizes he is no longer alone in the world. Love Begins in Winter is a touching story about the healing power of love.I also was delighted with The Coming and Going of Strangers which revolves around a love sick gypsy boy named Walter living in Ireland.Walter wheeled his hot, ticking motorbike up and down the muddy lane, breathing with the rhythm of a small, determined engine. Fists of breath hovered and then opened over each taken-step. He would soon be within sight of his beloved’s house. – from The Coming and Going of Strangers, page 135 -In this tale about first love, Van Booy provides a wonderful surprise ending that lifts the story a notch above excellent.In The City of Windy Trees, a character named George Frack receives a letter which completely changes the course of his life. I loved this story about the renewal of the human spirit through our connections with others.Van Booy captures the essence of what makes us human, and how love can be found in the most unexpected places. Readers who love poetry will enjoy this collection of stories which often feel like long, narrative poems.Highly recommended.