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    As Much Below as Up Above: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    As Much Below as Up Above: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    As Much Below as Up Above: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    Ebook35 pages25 minutes

    As Much Below as Up Above: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love

    By Simon Van Booy

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    About this ebook

    The Secret Lives of People in Love is the first short story collection by award-winning writer Simon Van Booy. These stories, set in Kentucky, New York, Paris, Rome, and Greece, are a perfect synthesis of intensity and atmosphere. Love, loss, human contact, and isolation are Van Booy's themes. In radiant prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world.

    Included in this updated P.S. edition is the new story "The Mute Ventriloquist."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 23, 2010
    ISBN9780062001887
    As Much Below as Up Above: A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love
    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

      As Much Below as Up Above - Simon Van Booy

      As Much Below as Up Above

      A short story from The Secret Lives of People in Love

      Simon Van Booy

      Dedication

      To Maddie

      Contents

      Dedication

      As Much Below as Up Abov

      Acknowledgments

      An Excerpt from Tales of Accidental Genius

      About the Author

      Praise

      Credits

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      AS MUCH BELOW AS UP ABOVE

      I am sitting on a beach, half on my bodyboard and half on the sand. I am surrounded by people who have made little camps with towels and rainbow-colored umbrellas.

      It is quite hot, but a cool wind blows from the north. I am in my bathing suit, sitting on a foam bodyboard I bought at the concession stand in the parking lot. My fat hangs down as though it is trying to escape my body. I should exercise, if not to reduce the size of my belly, then for my heart.

      The sea looks different in America, but I am still unable to brave the blind laugh of white foam.

      All seas are one sea. Every ocean holds hands with another. Although I have a job in Brooklyn, and I even have a girlfriend called Mina, part of my soul is in Russia. If I can brave the sea one last time—just up to my chest—I know that I may be reunited with myself.

      I came out to the beach alone today. Mina thinks I am at work. She only knows half the story of what happened so long ago. I suppose I only know half the story, too, as I am alive today and not in that metal case on the seabed. I can honestly tell you that I haven’t had a solid night of sleep since the accident. I dream they are all still alive down there, and my brain begins to conjure fantastic ways of rescuing them.

      A young couple sit down not far from where I am sitting. The young man is carrying a surfboard. He looks over and nods.

      A little cold with that wind, huh, he says—or asks,

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