Excerpt from Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The applause is deafening. I feel for Anna's mitten in my pocket.

I drip with sweat under the lights. Each drop holds its own tiny clapping audience. As always I want something sweet to drink. I hurry off the stage, still holding my bow. When I reach the steps, I feel again for Anna's mitten and suddenly see her face with terrifying clarity. Such straight hair and so many freckles. The only authentic memories find us—like letters addressed to someone we used to be.

I hurry to my dressing room. I find a towel, drink orange juice from a bottle, and fall into a chair.

Then I sit very still and close my eyes.

Another concert over.

I wonder how many more I can do. How many Annas are left. She was 12 when she died. Her father was a baker—and since that morning, every twelfth baguette he bakes bears the letter A. He lets children eat cakes in his shop for free. They talk loudly and make a mess.

A porter knocks then enters my dressing room with a cell-phone. He gestures for me to take it. He has the sort of square shoulders women like. There are deep lines around his eyes but he doesn't look over 40. I give him my bottle of juice. He holds it at a distance from his body. I cup the phone to my ear. It's Sandy. She wants to know how it has gone. She couldn't hear because of the static. It is the porter's phone. Someone had given her the number so she could listen from backstage. Sandy is my agent. She is originally from Iowa. A good businesswoman; understands how creative minds work, in other words—she's pushy with everyone but her talent. I tell her it went well. Then I ask if I can tell her something.

"Like what?" She says.

I seldom volunteer anything. For most of my thirties, I have seen little point in telling people anything. But as a teenager, I loved passionately, spent whole nights crying (for what I can no longer remember). I followed women home and then wrote sonatas that I left on doorsteps in the middle of the night. I dived into ponds fully clothed.

I almost drank myself to death. In my youth, all conflict was resolution—just a busier form of emptiness ...

Excerpted from Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy. Copyright © 2009 by Simon Van Booy. Excerpted by permission of Harper Perennial. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.