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    The Coming and Going of Strangers
    The Coming and Going of Strangers
    The Coming and Going of Strangers
    Ebook47 pages34 minutes

    The Coming and Going of Strangers

    By Simon Van Booy

    4.5/5

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    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
    ISBN9780061926563
    The Coming and Going of Strangers
    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

      The Coming and Going of Strangers - Simon Van Booy

      Walter’s Journey Through the Rain

      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. In the far distance, Sunday parked over the village like an old mute who hid his face in the hanging thick of clouds. The afternoon had seen heavy rain and the fields were soft.

      Tired and wet, lovesick Walter thought of the Sunday town streets, hymns and hot dinners, the starch and hiss of ironing; shoes polished and set down before the fire so that each shoe held a flame in its black belly; dogs barking at back doors. Early stars.

      He stopped and held his motorbike still. He listened for the sounds of the faraway town. At first he could hear only his own hard breathing. Then a bus growling up the hill; the creaking of trees; and then in the distance—seagulls screaming from the cliffs.

      There were scabs of mud on the black fuel tank of Walter’s motorbike. Leaves and sticks had caught in the spokes and marked the stages of his journey in their own language. Light had not yet drained from the world, yet the moon was already out and cast a skeletal spell upon the bare branches of trees.

      The road sloped downward for several hundred yards. In the distance, cows perched on steep pasture and barked solemnly out to sea. Walter imagined their black eyes full of wordless questions. What were they capable of understanding? The cold country of water that lay beyond the cliffs? Did they feel the stillness of a Sunday?

      Walter removed the basket of eggs from the milk crate strapped to the back of his seat. Then he lay the machine down on its side. A handlebar end disappeared into a puddle.

      It was the highest point in the county. Looking west, Walter knew from the few books in his uncle’s caravan that America lay beyond. He exhaled and imagined how night—like a rolling wave—would carry his breath across the sea to New York. He imagined a complete stranger breathing the air that filled his own body.

      Walter removed a glove and rubbed his face. The dirt beneath his fingernails was black with oil. Walter pictured his mother back at home, sitting by the fire with Walter’s baby brother in her arms—wondering what her son was doing out in the drizzle. His father would be out of his wheelchair and up on the roof of the caravan, whistling and hammering new panels above the sink where the leak was.

      This country is nothing but rain and songs, his father once said in his Romany accent.

      A young Walter had asked if that

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