AUGUST 2014 ;e Costco Connection 65
By Stephanie E. Ponder
SIMON VAN BOOY is not the first person to examine the nature of man’s connection to or perceived
isolation from others. But his novel The Illusion of
Separateness, this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, offers a
fresh look with spare and beautiful prose.
The idea that all humans are connected was just part of the inspiration for
the novel, which spans more than seven
decades and two continents and weaves
together the stories of six characters who
have no idea how intertwined their lives
really are.
For Van Booy, who grew up in rural
Wales and now lives in Brooklyn with his
wife and daughter, two of the characters
came to life after hearing stories told by
his wife’s grandmother, Annette Knapp. During
World War II her new husband, Bert, was in a B- 24
Liberator that was shot down over France. He survived through the kindnesses of locals.
Around the same time Van Booy heard those
stories, he began to mull a variety of philosophical
questions. For example, giving thought to who a
blind person would be attracted to at a dinner
party—likely the kindest or funniest person versus
the most attractive—planted the seed for the book’s
blind museum curator. A meditation on physicality
and reality left him thinking about his daughter,
Madeline, and how who he knows her to be is based
on her physical self, not her less tangible, yet more
defining, consciousness.
“So I wondered … if you can’t see something
physically or touch it, does it mean it’s not there, and
of course it’s just not true,” Van Booy says while
meeting with The Connection at an outdoor café in
For the author, characters are born from more
than putting pen to paper. “I usually buy things
that my characters own, like if I see a motorcycle
jacket in a thrift store with tears in the back, I’d
say, ‘Yeah, that could belong to the character I’m
working on now,’ ” says Van Booy. “I’ll sort of collect things, things that they’d have in their pockets,
things from their childhood, and so I’ll build a
sense of the person through colognes or clothes
or photographs from eBay that might have been
their ancestors.”
For The Illusion of Separateness, Van Booy ended
up gathering up, among other things, a watch, a
robe, a handkerchief and a blank Western Union
telegraph so he could re-create the message Bert
Knapp sends to Annette upon reaching safety in
England: “Just back from the most fabulous vacation on the Continent.”
Not unlike his fictional creations, Van Booy has
spent his life creating the kinds of connections made
obvious in The Illusion of Separateness. He has lived
in Paris, Athens and Kentucky; he’s written short stories; and edited three volumes of philosophy. He’s
also written a play, teaches at Manhattan’s School
of Visual Arts and is involved in the Rutgers
Early College Humanities Program for
young adults.
What became of the philosophical
questions that prompted The Illusion
of Separateness Readers might have to
draw their own conclusions, as Van Booy
admits, “It hasn’t led to any kind of spiritual
epiphany. I’m just more confused now.” C
Web of life
Signed book gıveaway
COSTCO HAS 50 signed copies of The
Illusion of Separateness, by Simon Van Booy,
to give away. To enter, just go to:
www.costcoconnectionbookgiveaway.com.
NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF AN Y KIND IS
NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.
Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is
sponsored by HarperCollins, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022.
Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age
18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries
must be received before the September issue is available online,
which will happen around August 25. Winners will be randomly
selected and noti;ed by mail on or before October 1, 2014. The value
of the prize is $14.99. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible
for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning
depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of
Costco or HarperCollins and their families are not eligible.
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Pennie Clark Ianniciello,
Costco book buyer
SOME BOOKS sneak up
on you, and it’s not until
you turn the last page that
the heft of the story settles
in. And then there are
novels like this month’s
book pick, The Illusion
of Separateness, by Simon
Van Booy, that leave
you dog-earing pages so
that you can easily return
to the sentences that are
so pure and true they
stop you in your tracks.
As the title implies,
the novel is a story of six
people, from a boy
orphaned in World War II
to a contemporary blind
museum curator, who at
different times and in
different places feel they
are completely alone.
Van Booy helps us realize
that even in our darkest
moments the people who
have been here before us,
people who will come
after us and those who are
not so far away right now
all create a web of inter-connectivity that we can
barely begin to see.
For more book picks,
see page 67.
book pick
Author ponders the invisible ties that bind FRANCEFREEMAN
Simon Van Booy
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