Zibby Mag

By Sherri Puzey

Catherine Newman has written parenting memoirs, a middle-grade novel, a kids’ craft book, a skill-building book for kids (which won a 2021 Zibby Award!), as well as the etiquette column at Real Simple and numerous other articles for magazines, newspapers, and online publications.

Her debut adult novel We All Want Impossible Things (out today!) is a celebration of life and love and female friendship—even in the darkest, most heartbreaking moments. I was lucky enough to interview Catherine about her friendship that inspired the book, navigating grief, and what she’s working on next.

Your best friend’s death was part of the inspiration for We All Want Impossible Things. How much of your friendship and your own experience in losing her is reflected in your novel? How did writing the book play a role in your own grieving process?

Indeed. (Sigh.) How much of our friendship in 200 pages? Like .0000001%. We were best friends since preschool—I could barely even begin to capture any of it! Oh, wait, but that’s not what you’re asking, is it. For, like, a weird numerical audit. What am I, an accountant all of a sudden? You’re asking how true to life it is. It is very true to life, in terms of the flavor of the friendship, and many of the childhood anecdotes and hospice stories are lifted directly from life. But then lots of it is fiction, including how hard the Edi character is on Ash, the narrator. Also, my friend did not die where I live. That kind of wishful thinking is where fiction is very handy! I had to apologize to her family for it, and they were very loving and indulgent.

You write, “Everyone dies, and yet it’s unendurable. A worldwide crescendo of grief, sustained day after day, and only one tiny note of it is mine.” We’ve all been living this “worldwide crescendo of grief” over the last few years in particular. Did you ever imagine your novel about love and grief would be so timely? Are people ready now more than ever to read a story that addresses the extraordinary experience of losing a loved one?

Thank you for picking out that line! I wrote the novel during the pandemic. So, even though it had been in my head in the five or so years since my friend had died, I didn’t sit down to write until we were just in the thick of it. So the timing was not random. There was an otherworldly pandemic moment for me—when they built that triage tent in Central Park, and it was 3 blocks from my parents’ apartment—and I felt so much terror and preemptive sorrow, and it turned out to be a good time to write a book about fear and grief. I had a lot of access to those feelings. And people are really open to thinking about death in a different way now. Zibby’s book Bookends really taps into that too, of course.

Your novel centers on this beautiful friendship between Edi and Ash, but it also dives deep into motherhood. Fly, be free! and Stay with me forever! are the two things Ash wants to say to everyone she loves most. What do you most want to say to your loved ones?

That! I still want to say that exact thing. Every year I blow out the candles on my birthday cake and I wish for just this. No loss. I can’t spare anybody.

I love a book that makes me both laugh and cry, and the infusion of humor throughout We All Want Impossible Things is absolutely perfect. Was this balance between funny and sad something you had to really work at while drafting this novel? In what ways did the time you spent with Ali while she was in hospice feel like it was also “scripted by Abbott and Costello”?

Oh, thank you for that! I would say that laughing and crying is my general lot in life, so no—it was not difficult to write that. I was a firehose of laughter and tears the entire time my friend was in hospice. It was entirely deranged, and often deeply pleasurable and just the greatest heartbreak of my life. Also, my daughter Birdy was home while I was writing, and all of Belle’s funny lines I lifted directly from her mouth as she was saying them. Plus, humor is our Jewish birthright! Laughing and surviving the unsurvivable is what we do best. That and having enough food on hand in case we need to suddenly flee the shtetl.

Why are there still so many missteps when it comes to saying or doing the appropriate things around death? Have we gotten any less awkward at navigating death given the collective loss of the last few years?

I tend to feel that the most unforgivable misstep around someone else’s grief is simply silence. We don’t know what other people need, and we’re afraid of grief, and of saying the wrong thing. And we might! We might say the wrong thing. And that’s totally fine. Maybe the wrong thing we say will be a hook that our grieving person hangs all their rage on for a time. That’s okay too! We just need to be courageous and lean in when people are hurting. Even if it’s awkward. A miscarriage. Infertility. Loss. Depression. Death. We just need to lean in, lean in, lean in. “What do you need?” “I’m here.” “We left a casserole on your porch.” “He was so lucky to have you with him.” “We’re with you in grief.” You’re going to have to be brave, I used to tell my kids when they were getting ready to offer their condolences. But it’s true for all of us.

What books have you been reading and loving recently? What books would you recommend someone read after finishing We All Want Impossible Things?

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews is my all-time favorite semi-autobiographical funny-sad book.

Also The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason.

Everything by Lily King, Jesmyn Ward, Ann Patchett.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

Everything by Samantha Irby, because I am always trying to figure out how to be funnier.

Your writing has been featured everywhere, you have a PhD, you’ve published books for both adults and kids, you instruct the country on proper etiquette, and the list goes on. What’s something you’d still like to tackle in your career?

I almost applied to nursing school a couple of years ago. I volunteer in a hospice, and I love the nurses so much—I revere them—and I thought: Could I? And then I decided that maybe being a volunteer is perfect for me because I get to sweep into somebody’s room with a cup of pudding and a funny story and a consoling hand to hold, and then sweep out again when their catheter needs adjusting. And I don’t have to relearn math. But writing-wise? I’m from New York, my parents are New Yorkers, and it really doesn’t matter where you publish because if it’s not in the New Yorker or the New York Times, it is dead to them. So, the New Yorker, I guess? Not that I’m going to try tackling that. More that it’s a tragicomic failure that my family has to deal with.

What can you share about your next writing project? Can we expect another adult novel?

I am writing another novel! I just joked to my agent that it’s called We All Still Want Impossible Things and it takes place in hospice. Because omg, the narrator is SO SIMILAR, if you know what I mean! And, tbh, all the characters. BUT! It takes place during a weeklong vacation on Cape Cod and it’s about secrets and sorrow, but also it’s just about being on vacation with grown children, which is so much fun.

We All Want Impossible Things is Zibby’s (Virtual) Book Club pick for December! Grab a copy of the book here and join the book club for a discussion with Zibby and Catherine on Tuesday, December 6, at 2:00 p.m. EST.

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Sherri Puzey is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of Virginia Tech with a BA in international relations. She is a contributing editor at Zibby Mag and a senior marketing manager at Zibby Books. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband and daughters. Find her book reviews and recommendations on Instagram @whatsherrireads