The Presence of Absence, Simon Van Booy
The Presence of Absence, Simon Van Booy
List: $10.99 | Sale: $7.70
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The Presence of Absence

Author: Simon Van Booy

Narrator: Philip Battley

Unabridged: 2 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/15/2022


Synopsis

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth.

"Language is a map leading to a place not on the map," announces a young writer lying in a hospital bed at the beginning of The Presence of Absence. As he contemplates his impending physical disappearance and the impact on his beloved wife, he realizes, "Life doesn't start when you're born . . . it begins when you commit yourself to the eventual devastating loss that results from connecting to another person."

Infused with poetic clarity and graced with humor, Simon Van Booy's innovative novella asks us to find beauty—even gratitude—in the cycle of birth and death. Stripped of artifice, The Presence of Absence is a meditation between the writer and the reader, an imaginative work that challenges the deceit of written words and explores our strongest emotions.

Simon Van Booy is not only a master storyteller but a writer whose fiction is rich with philosophical insights into things both mapped and undiscovered. The Presence of Absence parts the darkness to reveal what has been just out of sight all along.

About Simon Van Booy

Simon Van Booy has written over a dozen works of fiction (including Night Came with Many Stars) and is the editor of three volumes of philosophy. His books have been translated into many languages. He grew up in rural Wales but currently lives in New York City, where he works as an author, an editor, and an emergency medic at the Ridgewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps.


Reviews

I picked this up to sample Van Booy for the first time, and I’m glad I did. He’s a gorgeous writer. This is a strange experiment where he merged his efforts with those of another writer, and that in itself was worth reading about in the intro. I recommend this gem that can be read in a day without g......more

Goodreads review by Claire

Max Little is dying and wants to leave behind something of his life. A young writer of novels, novellas, and short stories, Max grew up in Wales, is of Pakistani descent, and now reclines in a New York hospital bed, in full acceptance of his terminal illness. Not wanting to beg the reader’s pity, Max......more

Goodreads review by Jesse

Easily my favorite book of the year - no hyperbole intended. Booy is one of my favorite writers for his elegant, soft and emotional sentence structure and his latest captures the best parts of his writing style in a 160 page bottle.......more