The Life Impossible

Matt Haig’s novel The Life Impossible was originally published by Viking in September 2024. The novel displays Haig’s characteristic voice and style and combines elements of fantasy and realism. The Life Impossible is primarily set on Spain’s island of Ibiza, where Haig has lived for extended periods. His connection with the novel’s setting informs his main character Grace Winters’s time on the island. When 72-year-old Grace discovers that her former colleague left her a house in Ibiza, she impulsively decides to leave her home in Lincolnshire, England, to explore the Spanish tourist destination. The novel employs both the present and past tenses and toys with conventional notions of the linear plotline. Throughout the narrative, Grace relays her recent transformative experiences to her former student Maurice Augustine via email. The novel is thus written from Grace’s first-person point of view and employs direct address. Grace’s encounters with natural settings and new people during her time in Ibiza inspire the novel’s thematic explorations of The Journey From Grief to Healing,