We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

I love it when a book can make me laugh out loud. Catherine Newman has written a book that does just that. It's also a book about dying. In my opinion, finding the humor among sadness keeps the world going around. In the author's description at the end of the book she writes that this is her first adult novel: "Not, like adult adult in the porn way. Just, you know, for grownups". Lucky us.

Ash's best friend Edi is dying of cancer. She has a small child and a husband. They all make the decision that Edi should come to a hospice near Ash so Edi's five-year-old son doesn't have to watch her die and therefore have that memory overtake all others. Thus, Ash drops everything, and her days become filled with easing her friend's passing. Edi and Ash are overwhelmed with self-pity, as anyone would be, yet being in the hospice helps them overcome that. They witness unbearable heartache such as the mother and baby who are in residence because the baby is dying. They also encounter humans who add color to their days, such as the elderly lady who confusedly steals sweaters from Edi's room and the centenarian whom Ash visits and whom she thinks she falls a little in love with.

Newman's humor comes into play through her clever and witty word choice. When Ash is ruminating over Edi's other best friend Ash admits to herself that she's always felt an "unholy jealousy" towards the other woman. Ash's numerous contemplations had me rolling like when she remembers picking out flowers for her wedding with Edi and skipping the ones called "clammy everlastings" because she didn't think it was a good omen for marriage. And her description of the movie Jaws as being besieged by a massive prehistoric marine predator, toxic masculinity, and pleated shorts.

The absurd situations in life that fill in the cracks of time in between the momentous are what breathes life into the story. When Ash is driving home after a particularly hard day at the hospice she gets pulled over. She's so upset and overwhelmed that she starts pulling out everything from her glove box to hand to the officer such as oil change papers and takeout menus. She finally tells the cop that her friend is dying; he lets her go with a warning.

It was hard to get behind certain aspects of Ash's character, like her rejection of her husband in order to sleep around with seemingly as many people as possible. Edi points out that she herself is losing so much- her family, her marriage, her life- but Ash is choosing to give it up. Maybe this is what guides Edi into doing the right thing at the end.

True friendship is the heart and soul of this book and we should all count ourselves lucky if we have one like Ash and Edi's. A Beatle's lyric sited in the novel might sum up this narrative's theme: the love you take is equal to the love you make. If you like to laugh and cry simultaneously then this novel's for you.