Review: Vivien Horler

The Life Impossible, by Matt Haig (Canongate)

Matt Haig is an enormously successful British writer who has sold untold numbers of novels, notably The Midnight Library, which is in the genre of magic realism, not one I particularly like.

At one point in this new novel I thought he’d obviously eaten all the mushrooms, because some weird stuff happens.

What the two books seem to have in common – and I haven’t read The Midnight Library – is that they both deal with conflicted women who have an experience that enables them to introspect, as the ANC puts it, consider the trajectory of their lives and how they can do better.

The chief character in The Life Impossible is Grace, a 72-year-old British widow not in the best of health. She is a retired maths teacher who lives with two central griefs for which she feels guilty – the loss of her 12-year-old son in a bicycle accident, and the more inevitable death of her husband whom she loved, but whom she cheated on.

She describes herself as an anhedonist – someone who is unable to feel pleasure – which she believes she deserves.

And then one day she receives a lawyer’s letter telling her a former teaching colleague, with whom she lost touch years ago, has died and left her a cottage on Ibiza (a bit of a tired old trope?)

It appears one Christmas this colleague, Christina, a music teacher, had reached a low ebb both in her life and career, and had no one to spend Christmas with. Grace invites her over for the day, and the two women do some bonding over a couple of bottles of wine.

Christina tells Grace how she has always wanted to make a living from her singing, and Grace encourages her to chase her dream. Not long after, Christina leaves teaching and heads to the party island of Ibiza, where she has a moderately successful career.

Her will says the cottage she is leaving Grace is a thank-you gesture for a good deed many years ago.

Grace is intrigued – the two women barely knew each other. Why would Christina leave her the cottage, and how did she die? When she asks the lawyer that question, he says her death is being investigated by the Spanish police. All he knows is she died at sea.

Grace likes maths because you can’t mess about with figures. She is not a great believer in the mystical. As a maths teacher she had always been the type who couldn’t see a question without pursuing an answer. And unlikely as it seems, she heads off to Ibiza.

In the cottage, which turns out to be on a busy road and doesn’t impress Grace much, she finds a letter Christina left her.

She tells Grace senses her own time is short. She can’t explain exactly why she left her the cottage, because if she told her, Grace would think she was insane.

Then she tells Grace to enjoy the island andrecommends various notable places to visit. Most importantly she says Grace should go to Atlantis Scuba at Cala d’Hort to meet her friend Alberto.

Alberto is a grizzled old-man-of-the-sea type wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a beard. Grace does not take to him, but she does want answers. But he says he can only show, not tell. If she wants to know the truth she needs to meet him on the beach at midnight.

Once again and unlikely as it seems, Grace agrees.

Which is where things get seriously weird. Bright lights in the water, a feeling of a Presence, and paranormal powers.

Nearby are a pair of tiny islets sticking out of the ocean, and a meadow of ancient seagrass between them and the beach. A mystic once lived in a cave on one of the rocks. Now a ruthless developer wants to build a hotel on the bigger rock, which would probably mean levelling it, and almost certainly the destruction of the seagrass.

There is opposition to this plan, but it is scrappy and disorganised. Alberto suggests Christina’s mysterious disappearance could be linked to the developer, and persuades Grace to use her new powers for good.

Grace is dubious, but – and that’s all I can tell you. I nearly put the novel aside when it all became very strange because, like Grace, I like things to be more or less realistic.

But I hung on – and I’m glad I did.