The Secret Lives of People in Love

by Simon Van Booy

  When I moved to Southampton for my graduate degree, age 25, I also invested in some decent furniture and a computer. Writing on a modern computer after a decade on a typewriter was like trading a 1972 Land Rover for a Toyota Camry—comfort and efficiency at the expense of romantic discomfort and the omnipresent fear of mechanical breakdown. My roommate then was the brilliant and hilarious New York writer Danielle Esposito who not only brought books, books, books, but also things like stainless steel turkey pans, whisks imported from Italy, and a herd of mittens and hats. It was like living inside a J. Crew catalog. And when one of us was writing, the other made the tea and kept quiet.

  Some people think that MFA graduate programs and writing workshops are a waste of time. I must say I disagree, because while it may be true that voice cannot be taught, it can certainly be coaxed to the page by good teachers. Sincere teachers are the ones who teach because they love rattling the bones of a story; they love being in the trenches of narrative, the alchemy of metaphor. Good teachers can help writers learn to see, and to take responsibility for their lives as writers and live accordingly—in other words, to afford themselves the physical and emotional space that writing demands. MFA programs rescue writers who are dangling off the ends of sentences they can’t finish. These programs also provide writers with a generous sense of community that they may never feel again. The years I spent in Southampton drinking coffee with my fellow students in the common room, or ambling through East Hampton on a fall day with poems in our heads, riding the train all night from Manhattan, our pockets stuffed with scraps of paper that we’d scribbled on, the parties that went on until morning, the readings, the discovery of new books, the flings, the favors and the sacrifices for one another—unrivalled days.

  I also feel that while it’s possible that a student in a graduate program for creative writing may not publish any books in the long term, the ability to craft stories and develop voice will inevitably make them more understanding parents, deepen their friendships, and lead to emotional rooms within that were previously locked or hidden from view. And any stories or memoirs a person crafts in their lifetime will live on long after they have died.

  In some ways, the ability to write is the opportunity to live forever, and to love forever.

  One of my first assignments as an MFA student was to write a short story for discussion in a workshop. I sat at my desk looking into the shallow woods beyond. And then it began to snow.

  I began to write.

  After two paragraphs I knew something was different. It felt effortless, but required almost an impossible presence of mind—a poise, a balance of feeling.

  I wrote “Snow Falls and Then Disappears” in a few hours. It was my first short story that was every published (in the East Hampton Star). And then it won several awards. And then in early 2001, Barbara Wersba of Bookman Press found me, and my career was launched.

  When you find your voice, it will be obvious to you. The voice isn’t just the choice of words but the sense of rhythm and, perhaps most important, the tone. This is why I could never be the sort of writer who is competitive. Everyone has their own style; no two writers are alike, even if they pretend to be.

  The Art of Spying

  IN SOME WAYS, a writer is like a spy. Writing a story can sometimes begin with an obsessive awareness of what’s taking place around you. If I’m in a restaurant, I may jot down everything I’m eating, perhaps what I talked to the waiter about, the music that was playing, and perhaps any changes in lighting that I may have noticed during my meal. These details will later serve the story, either as relief or distraction, or simply as some embedded realism. When I’m writing, I don’t think to myself, This part needs embedded distraction. It just seems to flow subconsciously as an unthinking process I trust deeply. I think it’s useful for writers to be super-aware of their environment because everyday details are probably stranger, more miraculous, and more frightening than anything they could come up with. If ever I’m at someone’s house and they offer a tour, my eyes light up. There’s really nothing better than a house tour. So many of the apartments and homes in my stories are based on real apartments. For instance, in “Save as Many as You Ruin,” Gerard’s view of Manhattan is actually the view from the desk of Hilary Knight, where he drew all the Eloise illustrations.

  Read on

  Have You Read?

  More by Simon Van Booy

  LOVE BEGINS IN WINTER: FIVE STORIES

  Winner of the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, this remarkable collection “convincingly shows how love rights the world” (Booklist). Van Booy’s characters walk the streets of these stark and beautiful stories until chance meetings with strangers force them to face responsibility for lives they thought had continued on without them.

  WHY WE FIGHT

  WHY WE NEED LOVE

  WHY OUR DECISIONS DON’T MATTER

  In these three volumes, one finds readings, poems, quotations, and images that consider and explore each question at hand. Van Booy selects gems of wisdom and insight from across the millennia in an attempt to sort our thoughts and feelings on questions that have long confronted the human mind.

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  About the Author

  Simon Van Booy was born in London and grew up in rural Wales. He is the author of Love Begins in Winter—which won the International Frank O’Connor Prize. His non-fiction has appeared in newspapers such as the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the New York Post. He lives in New York City, where he lectures at the School of Visual Arts and is involved in the Rutgers Early College Humanities Program (REaCH) for young adults living in underserved communities. His work has been translated into nine different languages.

  www.SimonVanBooy.com

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  PRAISE FOR THE SECRET LIVES OF PEOPLE IN LOVE

  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

  Credits

  Cover design by Milan Bozic

  Copyright

  “The Reappearance of Strawberries,” “The World Laughs in Flowers,” “Snow Falls and Then Disappears,” and “Everything Is a Be
autiful 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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