Tales of Accidental Genius

by Simon Van Booy

Overview

“She believed it was a gift to never truly know the self. We are not who we think we are, nor how others see us. Long before death, we die a thousand times at the hands of a definition.”

A master storyteller’s vision reawakens us to the human experience in this diverse, haunting, and unexpectedly humorous new collection of short fiction from Simon Van Booy—his first since Love Begins in Winter, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.

In his first book of short stories since Love Begins in Winter, for which he won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award), bestselling author Simon Van Booy offers a collection of stories highlighting how human genius can emerge through acts of compassion. Through characters including an eccentric film director, an aging Cockney bodyguard, the teenage child of Nigerian immigrants, a divorced amateur magician from New Jersey, and a Beijing street vendor who becomes an overnight billionaire, Tales of Accidental Genius contemplates individuals from different cultures, races—rich and poor, young and old—and reveals how faith and yearning for connection helps us all transcend darkness of fear and misfortune.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062408976
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/10/2015
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	921,641
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

The Menace of Mile End 1

The Goldfish 17

A Slow and Deliberate Disappearance 35

The Muse 49

Infidelity 65

Private Life of a Famous Chinese Film Director 85

Golden Helper II: An Epic Fable of Wealth, Loneliness, and Cycling 93

Editorial Reviews

There is a deep and abiding humanism to these stories: people assisting others because the alternative is too grim to contemplate…For all of the globe-trotting and experiments in storytelling found here, there’s also a very human core to these stories—a humanistic reminder of the connections we all share.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“One of the beauties of all Van Booy’s stories, including in his two prior stories collections and in two novels, is that he tells his stories without affectation, but ever so effectively as a stylist and a devout humanist. One amplifies the other, making his stories literary treasures.” — Portland Press Herald

“One of the best living short story writers gives us a collection of six beautifully written stories and a novella that search for the genius in common places and everyday deeds by way of poetic prose.” — Kansas City Star

“Tales of Accidental Genius proves to be a moving, humorous and engaging look at the ways people lean on and support one another. The first six stories fit together like houses on a street... [an] enthralling collection.” — Paste Magazine

From the Publisher

Tales of Accidental Genius proves to be a moving, humorous and engaging look at the ways people lean on and support one another. The first six stories fit together like houses on a street... [an] enthralling collection.

Paste Magazine

One of the beauties of all Van Booy’s stories, including in his two prior stories collections and in two novels, is that he tells his stories without affectation, but ever so effectively as a stylist and a devout humanist. One amplifies the other, making his stories literary treasures.

Portland Press Herald

There is a deep and abiding humanism to these stories: people assisting others because the alternative is too grim to contemplate…For all of the globe-trotting and experiments in storytelling found here, there’s also a very human core to these stories—a humanistic reminder of the connections we all share.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

One of the best living short story writers gives us a collection of six beautifully written stories and a novella that search for the genius in common places and everyday deeds by way of poetic prose.

Kansas City Star

One of the best living short story writers gives us a collection of six beautifully written stories and a novella that search for the genius in common places and everyday deeds by way of poetic prose.

Kansas City Star

2015-09-03
A tenderhearted clutch of stories and fables that highlights interconnectedness between everyone from fashionistas to peasantry, ranging from Brooklyn to London to Beijing. Van Booy is an unrepentant softie: two of his prior story collections highlight the word "love" in their titles (The Secret Lives of People in Love, 2007; Love Begins in Winter, 2009), and sentimentality runs deep here, too. Indeed, it sometimes overflows. "The Goldfish" is a treacly tale about a man seeking medical help for a dead fish he's persuaded himself is only ailing and another man's small act of kindness that spares him sorrow; in "A Slow and Deliberate Disappearance," a magician visits a retirement home, where a pair of stories he hears about eroding memories fuses in a predictable and old-fashioned manner. Van Booy displayed a similar romanticism in his 2013 novel, The Illusion of Separateness, but that book was redeemed by the depth of its characters. So it's not surprising that the shorter sketches that open this collection are improved upon by the prose poem/novella that closes it: in "Golden Helper II," a boy in Beijing named Weng watches his father labor over a mechanical device he's invented to add speed to the tricycle he uses to make vegetable deliveries; when it proves to be a kind of perpetual motion machine that makes Weng fabulously rich, he's forced to consider how he can use his newfound wealth to help others and deal with his heartache over the married woman he's fallen for. The story is formatted like a poem, though it generally reads like prose, and the careful, softened language ("his heart like a kite on currents of breath") and elemental plot support its billing as a satisfying fable. Van Booy clearly believes there are surprising new ways to write about love. Here, he proves he's right, occasionally.

Kirkus Reviews