WellRead’s January 2023 selection was We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman. For lovers of Meg Wolitzer and Nora Ephron, this precious book shows us that life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, and about learning when to hold on and when to let go.
Use these discussion questions to engage with the book further, whether in a book club with friends, or just on your own as you digest the story.
Reading questions for We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman:
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“Why do we even do this — love anybody?” Ash asks us. “Our dumb animal hearts.” What is Ash getting at? Did you connect with this sentiment?
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Newman, ever the humourist, described the book's genre as “sleazy hospice friendship romance”. How would you describe it to a prospective reader?
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Was it just us or did reading this book make you want to be more open-hearted?
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The physical reality of cancer is not glossed over in the book. How did you respond to these passages?
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Newman said that what she hoped readers got from the book was a sense “that it’s possible to go through something terrible and feel really well-loved”. What are some of the different ways that love is expressed in the novel?
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Ash is no saint. She is often self-centred and craves attention (Edi makes a point of asking her to not make everyone fall in love with her at her funeral). Her fallibility only made her more human and more endearing to us. What was your relationship to Ash?
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“Marriage confused me. Some days it seemed to be just an endless sequence of body functions: the fan turned on in the smelly bathroom; the sound of someone clipping their toenails into the trash can; a waxy Q-tip on the counter; a scrim of shaved-off hairs around the sink. Another person’s waste sloughing off incessantly! It can really drain a person of the will to live.” Apart from these sentiments (that we just had to include because they made us laugh so much), what does the book have to say about marriage?
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What do you think the title means?
Please note, these questions were written and distributed in January, 2023.