Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories [Paperback]

On the verge of giving up—anchored to dreams that never came true and to people who have long since disappeared from their lives—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.

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.Simon Van Booy seems to start with a story in mind and then to turn it into a poem without losing its narrative power. Love Begins in Winter is an exquisite show of force.Love Begins in Winter brings to life the wistfulness of youth and the possibilities of young love with clear and graceful prose.The stories of Love Begins in Winter are stylistically brilliant and emotionally beautiful. I found myself gasping, literally gasping, at surprises so perfectly attuned as to be inevitable. Simon Van Booy is an extraordinary writer, and this is a book to be read and reread again and again.Pitch-perfect&. Convincingly shows how love rights the world.Beautiful...each of these stories has moments of sheer loveliness.