We All Want Impossible Things: A Novel
Look for Wreck, the new novel by Catherine Newman—a deeply moving story of laughter and heart, about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn’t go as planned—Coming October 2025.
“Catherine Newman sees the heartbreak and comedy of life with wisdom and unflinching compassion. The way she finds the extraordinary in the everyday is nothing short of poetry. She’s a writer’s writer—and a human’s human.”—New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center
“A riotously funny and fiercely loyal love letter to female friendship. The story of Edi and Ash proves that a best friend is a gift from the gods. Newman turns her prodigious talents toward finding joy even in the friendship’s final days. I laughed while crying, and was left revived. Newman is a comic masterhand and a dazzling philosopher of the day-to-day.”—Amity Gaige, author of Sea Wife
“The funniest, most joyful book about dying—and living—that I have ever read.”—KJ Dell'Antonia, author of the New York Times bestselling The Chicken Sisters
For lovers of Meg Wolitzer, Maria Semple, and Jenny Offill comes this raucous, poignant celebration of life, love, and friendship at its imperfect and radiant best.
Edith and Ashley have been best friends for over forty-two years. They’ve shared the mundane and the momentous together: trick or treating and binge drinking; Gilligan’s Island reruns and REM concerts; hickeys and heartbreak; surprise Scottish wakes; marriages, infertility, and children. As Ash says, “Edi’s memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.”
But now the unthinkable has happened. Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or two), and a rotating cast of beautifully, fleetingly human hospice characters.
As The Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack blasts all day long from the room next door, Edi and Ash reminisce, hold on, and try to let go. Meanwhile, Ash struggles with being an imperfect friend, wife, and parent—with life, in other words, distilled to its heartbreaking, joyful, and comedic essence.
For anyone who’s ever lost a friend or had one. Get ready to laugh through your tears.
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Community Reviews
What’s it about?
Edi and Ash have been friends since they were kids. Edi has a husband, a seven-year-old son, and ovarian cancer. When she has exhausted all treatments and is ready for palliative care she ends up in a hospice near her best friend, Ash. This is Ash’s story.
What did it make me think about?
What a gift hospice is- and Catherine Newman you captured it all so well.
Should I read it?
I loved this book! Ash and Edi (but especially Ash) are messy, and human, and getting through a difficult time as best they can. I have no doubt that some will say the writing is too glib- too funny. But maybe they haven’t spent enough time in a hospice facility. “Hospice is just so existentially weird. It’s like you walk in under a giant banner that says, EVERYONE HERE IS DYING! but then most of the time you’re just making small talk and quesadillas, trying to find something to watch on Netflix, or wondering if there’s any pie left.” I have been fortunate enough to volunteer with hospice for a long time- and I have laughed almost as much as I have cried- so the humor worked for me. So many of the scenarios in this book ring true to me. (my dad was put on a waiting list for hospice…). So yes, I recommend this book highly! I wish I could hand a copy to every person that helps to make hospice such a warm place to land.
Quote-
“I pull the door closed on my way out. Everywhere, behind closed doors, people are dying, and people are grieving them. It’s the most basic fact about human life- tied with birth, I guess- but it’s startling too. Everyone dies, and yet it’s unendurable. There is so much love inside of us. How do we become worthy of it? And, then, where does it go? A worldwide crescendo of grief, sustained day after day, and only one tiny note of it is mine.”
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