We All Want Impossible Things

Published in 2022
224 pages

epub



Catherine Newman has written numerous columns, articles, and canned-bean recipes for magazines and newspapers, and her essays have been widely anthologized. She is the author of the novel We All Want Impossible Things; the memoirs Waiting for Birdy and Catastrophic Happiness; the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night; and the bestselling kids’ life-skills books How to Be a Person and What Can I Say? She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

What is this book about?
Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self?

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life’s milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, ‘Edi’s memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.’

So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash’s world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi’s care, from chipped ice and watermelon cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night. Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.