The Life Impossible: A Novel
“a beautiful blend of reality and the paranormal, a fresh way of looking at life and a guide to moving beyond guilt and sorrow into a world where hope and light are possible.”
When Grace Winters receives an email from a former student looking for guidance after the loss of his mother, she responds with what is supposed to be a short email, but ends up being a book. Her student is feeling despondent, guilty, and sad, and wonders if she has any advice since she has also lived with grief after losing her husband. Grace does have some guidance, and is pleased to be able to help, if she can. She writes:
“What I am about to tell you is a story even I find hard to believe . . . I have never believed in magic, and I still don’t. But sometimes what looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet.”
Grace tells her student she was living a boring, basically unexceptional life after her husband died. She felt empty, alone, and unworthy of anything better. She can look back now and see that she was just moving through life not expecting anything more, and not looking for anything beyond her daily survival. She was living as an empty, unfeeling shell. She tells him
“that’s the most basic and essential form of existence, isn’t it? Feeling. And to live without feeling, then what was that? What was that? It was like just sitting there. Like a table in a closed restaurant, waiting forever for someone to occupy the furniture.”
In the midst of her bland life, she tells her student, she received an unexpected piece of news: an old friend died and left Grace a house in Ibiza, Spain. Grace hasn’t seen this friend for many years, but an old kindness she imparted was remembered and honored in this bequest. Grace struggles with the decision of whether to leave her colorless home or simply sell the house in Ibiza, but she is given some advice, which she shares.
“Someone once told me the way to die happy is to die complete. To live like you eat a delicious meal. To devour and enjoy every course so that when you have finished you are full, and enjoyed every mouthful, but aren’t too sad there is no more.”
Grace decides to take this advice, and leaves her home with the plan to check out the new home before selling it. When she arrives at the small, nondescript bungalow she finds a letter from her friend telling her all of the magical things she can expect if she just tries out living. While Grace settles in she discovers there is some question about her friend’s death, and she becomes determined to find out what happened to her.
Grace, discounting the warnings of those she questions, hunts down Alberto, the man people say was the last to see her friend before she drowned in the middle of the night. This starts a relationship Grace can’t understand; something magical seems to surround him, his boat, and the water he travels. Grace also finds magic at her cottage when a jar refills with light, and a supposedly extinct flower grows in the middle of her walk. Though she doesn’t trust Alberto, she confides in him her quest to solve the questions of her friend’s death, and together they seek the truth. Alberto leads her to a sort of enchantment she doesn’t understand, but which helps her discover the need for forgiveness, honesty, and joy, so that she may move forward with her life.
The Life Impossible is a beautiful blend of reality and the paranormal, a fresh way of looking at life and a guide to moving beyond guilt and sorrow into a world where hope and light are possible. Haig’s characters are fully realized and interesting; one can’t help but root for them to find meaning and peace. Recommended for those who enjoy sweet and touching stories (with a touch of magic) about the purpose of our time on earth.