The Presence of Absence

The Presence of Absence is a novel by Simon Van Booy that combines story with parable, exploring faith, devotion, and the cycle of birth and death. It is filled with poetic clarity and humor, asking the reader to find beauty and gratitude in the cycle. Van Booy is a master storyteller with philosophical insights into both mapped and undiscovered things.

Format: Hardback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 15 December 2022
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Inc

“Flows with depth and power....wide-open wonder.”— Washington Post

“Simon Van Booy electrifyingly combines story with parable....wise,witty and always breathtakingly beautiful.”— San Francisco Chronicle,Best Fiction of the Year

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. This is Simon Van Booy at his visionary best.

“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 doesnt start when youre 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 the reader 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.

Weight: 282g
Dimension: 131 x 197 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781567927443