Welcome to another installment of If My Book, the Monkeybicycle feature in which authors compare their recently released books to weird things. This week Timothy Boudreau writes about Love You, Miss You, Goodbye Forever, his new story collection published by Stanchion.
If Love You, Miss You, Goodbye Forever were an album, it would be a defunct band’s collection of fragmentary outtakes: guitarist’s overdubbed acoustic impressionist swirls, singer’s wordless melodic coos over a rudimentary drum machine, bassist’s junior high oboe swooping over a slippery Jaco-esque bassline; two or three twitchily funky singalongs with nonsensical lyrics. Cover photo of the band cavorting along a forest path in dress shirts, paisley scarfs, leather pants, circa ’82, just before their final breakup.
If Love You… were a spider, it would subsist on air and water, spin webs of varying textures and shapes for no other reason than they might catch and reflect the perfect angle of sunlight. It would immediately free any creatures—metallic blue beetles, linty wooly aphids—it inadvertently captured. Apologize, help brush off any remaining webbing, wish them well, lovingly watch them crawl, creep or fly away
If Love You… were a movie, it would be 82 minutes long.
If Love You… were a big-league baseball player, it would be a utility infielder, agile late-inning defensive replacement, with secret dreams of stepping on the mound to unleash hundred-MPH fastballs and clouting the game winning homerun off the water tower beyond left field.
If Love You… were a feeder, it would include seeds for every bird, tasty, protein-rich scraps for those who don’t like seeds.
If Love You… were an office employee, it would bring its coworkers thoughtful snacks, healthy but not too healthy; would listen, commiserate, share recipes, book and film picks; do more than its fair share of the tasks everyone else avoids. It would give two-weeks’ notice after a year or two, depart to Europe, the Tropics or the Canadian Rockies, send occasional postcards to cheer the remaining staff, remind them there are alternate worlds open to all of us.
If Love You… were pens and a notebook, it would be a package of Bic blue ballpoints and a spiral bound five-subject college-ruled, available at the Dollar Store.
If Love You… were a village, its citizens would include a lovesick teenaged boy, fan of Bradbury, Bronte, and the Little River Band; a grandfather and his granddaughter, seeking comfort together in drugs, alcohol, and each other; a Big Box Lawn and Garden Department at the end of the world, becoming a closer family as the insects take over.
Timothy Boudreau’s work has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize, and included in Best Microfiction. In addition to Love You, Miss You, Goodbye Forever, his collection Stepdad on the Dance Floor and novel All We Knew Were Our Hearts are due from Unsolicited Press in 2026 and 2027, respectively. He is an editor at The Loveliest Review. Find him on BlueSky at @tcboudreau or at timothyboudreau.com.
Buy Love You, Miss You, Goodbye Forever here.