CULTURE CLUB
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WORDS BY CHARLOTTE GRIFFITHS
WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BY CATHERINE NEWMAN “Hospice is a complicated place to pass the time because you are kind of officially dying,” asserts food writer Ash. She finds herself passing time in a local hospice with best friend Edi, who suffers with terminal ovarian cancer and has been given weeks to live by doctors in Manhattan. Unable to find hospice care in the city for Edi, Ash – based in western Massachusetts – suggests the nearby Graceful Shepherd Hospice, so Edi says a final goodbye to her husband Jude and young son Dash, and moves into the ‘Shapely’ for her final days. Having grown up together in New York, the two women share a lifetime of experiences – one’s memory is a backup for the other, and the tragedy of losing that is just one of the cruelties dealt out by Edi’s cancer. Ash leans on her own support network, containing Edi’s older brother, who Ash is sleeping with after a life-long crush; Ash’s own daughters, Jules and Belle; her husband, from whom she is separated- but-not-quite; plus cats, Jelly and Thumper. The group enter the otherworldly state you slip into when you know someone is about to leave for good – where all the noise and clutter falls by the wayside: “between the Twilight Zone and some other fuckery”, as Edi’s other friend Alice puts it. Their days revolve around hospice visits and Edi’s rhythms: buying watermelon and magazines, tracking down elusive cakes from Edi’s past, all while preparing for their friend’s death and a future they must move into without her. At no point does the book tip into overly sugared sentimentality. Like the process of dying, it’s bluntly hilarious – we learn about Ash and Edi’s past escapades and the slowly expanding cast of characters Ash is (potentially inappropriately) sleeping with. With more everyday comedy, the
tale draws to the inevitable conclusion hanging over this book. There will be no miracle cure. Edi will not rise from the bed with rosy cheeks as doctors marvel. It’s terrible and awful and yet the most simple, real, quotidian occurrence: “The most basic fact about human life – tied with birth, I guess,” Ash says, “but it’s so startling. Everyone dies, yet it’s unendurable. There’s so much love inside of us.” The women’s friendship is depicted in such real prose that you hold your breath while reading for fear of being noticed in the room, as they hold hands and fiercely love each other. Yet a paragraph after a moment of unbearable grief, you’ll laugh at a quip from one of Edi’s brilliant friends. This is a stunning, heartbreaking book. It will make you cry ugly tears, laugh with your whole heart and hug your most precious friends.
Everyone dies, yet it’s unendurable. There’s so much love inside of us
FOOD FOR THOUGHT Catherine Newman’s tender novel rawly depicts the experience of watching a loved one pass away
26 NOVEMBER 2022 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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