What are the connections between memory and imagination? Is separateness only an illusion? These are the two questions that Simon Van Booy explores in this beautiful book. Readers aren’t handed the answers. Rather, bits and pieces of the lives of six people are given to us in non-linear order. We have to practically work up a sweat to put them together. The results are astonishing and worth the effort. It’s rare that I begin re-reading a book the moment I finish it the first time, but I did with this one. The prose is masterful and the images are memorable.
Van Booy, Simon. The Illusion of Separateness. Harper Perennial, 2013, p. 22.