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 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 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.