Matt Haig's novel The Life Impossible features a surprise inheritance, a magical island and cautious hope

Bookends with Mattea Roach29:18Matt Haig: A surprise inheritance, a magical island and why he's embracing hope — in fiction and life

In Matt Haig's latest bestseller, The Life Impossible, a retired math teacher goes on a Spanish adventure after inheriting a house on Ibiza. But things on the island aren't quite what they seem. For Matt, the story's surrealist elements mirror aspects of his own journey through depression and mental illness — and coming through it with new ideas about what's possible. He speaks with Mattea Roach about striving for authentic optimism in his fiction. Music featured in this episode: "Rainy Days and Mondays" written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, performed by Carpenters, from the 1971 self-titled album, Carpenters, produced by Jack Daugherty.

What would you do if a long-lost friend left you a house in Ibiza in their will?

In Matt Haig's novel The Life Impossible, retired math teacher Grace Winters is faced with that same revelation.

Feeling unfulfilled in her life, she books a one-way ticket to Ibiza, determined to figure out why she was left this property — and what happened to her friend, who died under mysterious circumstances.  

Featuring Haig's trademark magic realism, dark humour, complex characters and optimism, The Life Impossible is a tale of a woman rediscovering the beauty of life and fighting for a better world.

Haig is a British author of fiction, nonfiction and kids' books, but is perhaps best known for his novel The Midnight Library — which became popular on TikTok during the pandemic — and for his candid memoir, Reasons to Stay Alive, about his struggles with depression. 

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While The Life Impossible is decidedly fiction, it shares themes with Haig's earlier writing about mental health by way of the supernatural elements it employs.

 "It's a metaphor, or at least a fable around recovery," said Haig on Bookends with Mattea Roach, CBC's new author interview show. 

"[Grace] is definitely a protagonist who feels at the start like they've got their life behind them," he said. She's grieving her husband, who passed away fairly recently, and her son, who died years earlier in an accident. 

Weighed down by this baggage, she has a pessimistic view on life before she decides to give in to the forces pulling her to Ibiza. Once she arrives, she has surreal experiences which help her appreciate life in a new way. 

Feeling like the impossible is happening, while true in the magic elements of the novel, is something Haig relates to his own process of recovery.

"When I was going through depression … I had a very pessimistic worldview and one which said I would never get better," he said. 

"And so when you recover, life itself starts to feel a little bit surreal because you're living the impossible in your daily life. The grass seems green, the sky seems bluer and everything's more vivid."

Writing about Ibiza

Part of the reason everything's more vivid — aside from the magical forces at play — is because Grace left grey England for colourful Ibiza — a setting that Haig is also personally connected to. 

In fact, he lived there himself and dedicated the novel to the people and the location, wanting to show the multifaceted nature of a place often only known for its club culture. 

"Ibiza has many things. Ibiza is actually a quiet place if you want it to be. It's a place of nature sanctuaries. It's a place of pine forests and beautiful forest walks," he said.

When you recover, life itself starts to feel a little bit surreal because you're living the impossible in your daily life.- Matt Haig

For Haig, Ibiza also represents the site of his mental health breakdown in his 20s. He long blamed the place for how he felt when he was there, but a recent visit allowed him to face the past and achieve a sense of catharsis, he said. 

The island, reliant on tourism, is also a setting through which to explore the social and environmental impacts of its millions of visitors. 

 "It's a very delicate place, which I related to on the personal level, and it's a very fragile place in need of protection."

Breaking free from cynicism

Despite the themes of environmental worry, The Life Impossible is a largely optimistic novel, a characteristic of Haig's writing that he's sometimes been criticized for, stemming from the notion that serious literary work has to be cynical. 

"I grew up with this cynicism which is kind of part of British culture," he said. "You've got to be suspicious of happy endings. You've got to be suspicious of pop psychology and self-help. You've got to be suspicious of optimism."

Haig's answer to that perspective, as someone who has felt that pessimism firsthand, is that much of that cynicism turned out to be wrong. 

"Time disproved a lot of the things that were in my head," he said.

Still, he's weary of optimism that's hollow and harmful — and strives to be honest in the way he portrays it. 

"The challenge for a writer is actually to write something that's hopeful, but to do it in a way where you take people who are struggling at rock bottom. You get them to a better place, but you try and get them to a better place in an honest way and a truthful way."

'A fluke to be cherished'

Part of that honesty and truth comes from the flippant, yet philosophical life perspective offered by the novel. Midway through the book, Grace calls life "a fluke to be cherished," an idea to which Haig also subscribes.

While it's easy to forget the miracle of one's own existence and be consumed by daily worries, Haig explained that  "we continually need reminding of the wonder of being alive."

And yes — he's aware that it sounds "corny and sentimental" — but that doesn't make it any less important.

"I think fiction in particular and art in general is a great way to remind ourselves [that] this [life] is the one thing we get to appreciate."

This interview was produced by Katy Swailes and Talia Kliot.