The Reappearance of Strawberries

I thought I had grown past it. But again, I was wrong. You do it a lot when you're younger. And with age you hope that maturity has cooled your spirit enough to not fall into this particular conflict.

But it is a refreshing annoyance in which you find something without looking for it, and with finding it going through the unfolding of feelings in which you greedily want to bury it deep where it can only be unpacked by yourself for yourself. And yet conversely, entertaining the feelings to want to share it with the world because no matter how bad or how frustrating or even how deserted the world feels, the world needs to cherish this thing. For me, discovering Simon Van Booy is what has pleasantly forced me to again relive this conflict.

Not since the first time I leafed through the short stories of Raymond Carver or Sebald have I felt so captivated by short fiction and its ability to be ephemerally connective and not just through time but also through all spheres of society. The characters in The Secret Lives of People in Love come from all walks of life and are found, or planted all throughout the globe. But the connecting fiber that mends together the souls of these characters are in the voice of their spirits. Whether they be hopeful or be entrenched in hopelessness, each story is weighted by this voice of the spirit that solidifies us as human. It could be said, and said so critically, that the voices of each of the stories are too much the same. But that observation maybe more true to form, as again, it’s not a particular spirit to an individual that makes these stories so pertinent, but rather the universality of feeling and feeling found in the human spirit. And brilliantly, and yes I mean in a quiet and unassuming brilliance each story starts in the present but yet the reader finds themselves effortlessly being transported back and forth through these characters’ histories getting the full enumeration of this spirit. It’s a balancing act of time and effort for Simon but for the reader it comes off as transparent and flawless.

It’s been a joy to read these stories. Moreover, it’s been captivating to reread these stories and let this collection live in my back pocket as I myself find new eyes that re-see the world full of the possibility to hope; haunting, breathtaking, timeless are the stories found in The Secret Lives of People in Love.




Without Relent,
Peace
Remoy