Matt Haig and The Life Impossible: A Journey Through Grief

[Gentlew music plays, as if from memory. A lamp glows softly by the window. Matt Haig speaks as though we’ve just sat down beside him, both of us holding a warm drink, the world momentarily paused.]

When I wrote The Life Impossible, I wanted to ask a question I couldn’t shake:
What if the end of your old life isn’t the end of you?

Grace Winters is 72. She’s lost everything—or so she thinks. But pain has a way of reopening the soul, and in that raw openness, something miraculous can emerge.

These conversations are not just about my book. They’re about our book—our shared search for meaning, for healing, for the courage to start again.

So I invited a few voices—some from this world, some from memory, some from imagination—to help explore five questions that live at the heart of Grace’s journey.

Together, we ask:
Can we be reborn through grief?
Can magic be real if it changes us?
Can the Earth heal us while we heal it?
What is the true power of older women?
And why do we write to those who may never read our words?

These aren’t just themes. They’re lifelines. And I hope, like Grace, you find something unexpected in the questions themselves.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.) 

Rebirth After Loss

Cheryl Strayed – Memoirist of Wild, known for walking through grief and emerging with raw wisdom and resilience.

Elizabeth Gilbert – Spiritual adventurer and author of Eat, Pray, Love, exploring loss, love, and radical reinvention.

Joan Didion – Literary icon whose cool clarity in The Year of Magical Thinking reshaped how we talk about grief.

C.S. Lewis – Philosopher of pain and wonder, whose A Grief Observed chronicles the soul’s journey through mourning.

Topic: How does Grace’s journey reflect the idea that life can begin again—even after devastating grief?

Setting: A round oak table in the corner of a sunlit library. Outside, trees sway in a gentle breeze. The air is filled with stillness, like the moment before someone speaks a hard truth.

Matt Haig (Moderator):
Thank you all for being here. In The Life Impossible, Grace finds herself—at 72—on the other side of great loss. Her son, long gone. Her husband, recently passed. And yet… her life begins again. Not quietly, but with wonder.
So I want to begin by asking:
Can the aftermath of grief really hold the seeds of a new life? Or are we only ever piecing back what was broken?

Cheryl Strayed:
Oh, it can be both. When I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, I wasn’t just mourning my mother. I was trying to become someone new. Grief is this brutal sculptor—it carves out who you were. But in that hollow space, you get to choose what comes next. Grace in your novel? She doesn’t ask for a second life. She claims it. That’s brave.

Elizabeth Gilbert:
Yes, and I think it’s important to honor that choice. When I lost the person I loved most, I realized: sorrow doesn’t negate wonder. In fact, it sharpens it. People think rebirth looks like spring flowers. Sometimes it looks like a woman crying in an airport bathroom, then buying a ticket to Ibiza.

Joan Didion: (softly, almost clinically)
Grief is a collapse of narrative. When my husband died, I stopped knowing how the story continued. There’s a void where the plot used to be. The discipline is in staying. Staying long enough for the silence to speak. Grace’s life begins again not because she wants it to—but because she stayed long enough for something unexpected to find her.

C.S. Lewis:
Precisely. We don’t walk out of the tomb. We’re called out. I used to believe grief was something to be conquered with logic. But grief taught me to listen for grace. In Grace Winters, I see not just rebirth, but revelation—one that says: life doesn’t end in despair. It begins in it, if we let it.

Matt Haig:
That’s profound. So what do you say to those—like Maurice in the book—who feel their pain means their story is already over?

Cheryl Strayed:
I say: you don’t have to believe in the light. Just walk toward it anyway.

Elizabeth Gilbert:
And trust that curiosity is holy. Ask yourself: What if I’m not done yet? That question saved my life.

Joan Didion:
Grief isn’t linear. It’s atmospheric. You live with it. But one day, you find yourself laughing again—and that’s not betrayal. That’s survival.

C.S. Lewis:
Or, as I once wrote: “Courage, dear heart.” That may be all one needs to hear.

Matt Haig (closing):
Thank you. Grace didn’t wait for permission to begin again—she answered a call no one else could hear. And maybe that’s what rebirth really is: the quiet agreement between despair and hope… to keep going.

Magic vs. Reality – Where Do We Find Meaning?

• Neil Gaiman – modern mythmaker blending fantasy and humanity
• Haruki Murakami – master of surreal realism and quiet existential wonder
• Madeleine L’Engle – spiritual science-fiction author of A Wrinkle in Time
• Carl Jung – the father of analytical psychology and archetypal thought

Setting: A circular observatory on a misty cliff, filled with old star maps, dream journals, and steaming cups of tea. The ceiling opens to the stars. There’s a strange energy in the air, as if stories themselves are listening.

Matt Haig (Moderator):
In The Life Impossible, Grace experiences a supernatural awakening—La Presencia—after deep grief. She gains powers. She changes.
But is it real? Or a metaphor? Does it matter?
I want to ask each of you:
What’s the role of magic in helping us process reality—and how do we know where meaning comes from?

Neil Gaiman:
Magic is just reality that hasn’t been explained yet. In stories, we use enchantment to sneak past the guards of logic. We tell the truth by lying. When Grace touches La Presencia, it’s not about powers. It’s about possibility. About the idea that grief cracks us open so the stars can reach in.

Haruki Murakami: (gazing at the sky)
I don’t believe in magic. I write about it because I believe in loneliness. And loneliness bends reality. When someone is grieving or seeking, time behaves strangely. Reality wavers. That wavering—that is where meaning can emerge. Grace isn’t imagining things. She’s perceiving a deeper layer of the world.

Madeleine L’Engle:
Yes. And science, too, is magical when deeply understood. When I wrote about tesseracts and love crossing dimensions, I meant it literally and metaphorically. Grace’s psychic transformation isn’t an escape from the world—it’s a deeper embrace of it. The laws of the heart, after all, are not less real than the laws of physics.

Carl Jung: (calmly lighting a pipe)
Indeed. There is no division between psyche and cosmos in the archetypal realm. What Grace encounters is an activation of her inner Self through symbol. La Presencia is not outside her. It is the Self calling to be integrated. We encounter the magical when we confront the unconscious with courage.

Matt Haig:
So… the magic doesn’t save her. It reveals her?

Jung:
Exactly. The powers are secondary. What matters is that the soul answered.

Neil Gaiman:
And the world always answers back—whether through stars, forests, or silence.

Murakami:
Or through a cat that disappears the moment you open the door.

Madeleine L’Engle: (smiling)
Or through a wrinkle in time that brings you to your true self.

Matt Haig (closing):
So perhaps the question isn’t: Is it real?
But rather: Does it change you?
Magic or not, if the story takes you somewhere better, that’s meaning enough.

Environmental Stewardship as Moral Duty

• Barbara Kingsolver – novelist and biologist whose work celebrates the natural world
• Margaret Atwood – speculative fiction icon warning us about ecological collapse
• Jane Goodall – primatologist and environmental advocate, spiritual in her approach to nature
• Richard Powers – author of The Overstory, exploring trees, time, and interconnectedness

Setting: A sun-drenched clearing in an ancient forest. Massive trees tower overhead. Wildflowers bloom around mossy stones arranged in a circle. Birds call gently as wind stirs the leaves. The discussion begins seated on logs and rocks, a fire crackling softly in the middle.

Topic: How does Grace’s stand against developers become a metaphor for healing the world—and herself?

Matt Haig (Moderator):
In The Life Impossible, Grace, a grieving widow, finds herself fighting to protect a piece of Ibiza from destruction.
She doesn’t start as an activist. But through loss, she becomes one.
So my question is:
Is protecting the Earth an act of personal healing—or is personal healing only possible when we reconnect with the Earth?

Barbara Kingsolver:
It’s both. We forget the planet is not a backdrop—it’s our body, our home. When you hurt, you want to curl up somewhere safe. Grace found that space in the wild corners of Ibiza. She healed with the Earth, not apart from it. That’s not metaphor—that’s biology. It’s soul work written in chlorophyll.

Margaret Atwood:
And let’s not romanticize it either. The Earth doesn’t need us to save it. What we’re really saving is our own humanity. Grace puts her body between the land and destruction—and that’s an ancient story. From mythology to resistance movements, the fight for land is a fight for meaning.

Jane Goodall: (gently)
When you grieve, you feel separate—from the person you lost, from life itself. Nature reminds us: we are never separate. A forest doesn’t grieve the fall of one tree. It reabsorbs, regrows. Grace’s powers aren’t about controlling nature—they’re about finally listening to it.

Richard Powers:
Exactly. And the real revelation is scale. Trees live in centuries. Forests breathe in generations. Grace’s awakening shifts her time perception. She realizes her story is part of something older and longer. Once you feel that—really feel it—you stop asking if activism matters. You start asking: How could I not?

Matt Haig:
So, protecting the Earth isn’t just about being moral—it’s about being whole?

Kingsolver:
Yes. Healing the world is healing yourself in slow motion.

Atwood:
And sometimes, letting a flower grow is the most radical act of defiance.

Goodall:
Or the most powerful prayer.

Powers:
And every tree saved is a note in the great unfinished song of life.

Matt Haig (closing):
Thank you. Maybe that’s what Grace really discovers—not just her voice, but the Earth’s. And once you hear it, you’re never the same.

The Hidden Power of Older Women

Isabel Allende – novelist of passion, aging, and female wisdom (The Japanese Lover, The Soul of a Woman)

Toni Morrison – whose older women characters embody ancestral strength (Sula, Beloved, A Mercy)

Gloria Steinem – feminist thinker and icon who champions reinvention at every age

Anne Lamott – spiritual essayist who brings humor, humility, and fierce grace to aging and faith

Setting: A warmly lit seaside veranda at golden hour. The sound of waves rolls in below. Seagulls glide. A tray of tea and wine rests on a driftwood table. It feels like the kind of place where truth is spoken softly, but with unshakable strength.

Topic: What does Grace’s transformation say about aging, wisdom, and the untapped potential of women in their later years?

Matt Haig (Moderator):
In The Life Impossible, we meet Grace not at the start of life—but at 72. She’s a widow. A retired math teacher. And yet… she becomes a psychic warrior for the Earth.
So let me ask:
What is it about later life—especially for women—that allows a different kind of power to emerge?

Isabel Allende:
Because we are finally free. Free from needing to please, to perform, to shrink. Grace stops being “invisible” not because the world notices her—but because she notices herself. Women hold the stories of the world in their bodies. And after 70 years? That story becomes a wildfire.

Toni Morrison: (in her grounded, lyrical tone)
Old age is not decline. It’s depth. In my work, older women are seers, holders of history. Grace doesn’t just gain powers—she accesses something she always had. The problem is not her age. The problem is that no one expected her to be necessary. And yet, she is.

Gloria Steinem:
Exactly. We live in a culture that treats aging like erasure—especially for women. But aging can be revolution. Every wrinkle Grace wears is earned wisdom. Every dismissal she’s survived becomes quiet armor. When she stands up to those developers, she’s standing on the shoulders of every woman who was told to sit down and be quiet.

Anne Lamott: (grinning)
And let’s be honest: by 70, you just stop giving a damn what people think. You’ve buried people you love. You’ve lost dreams. You’ve made peace with thighs that don’t lie. Grace finds power because she stopped waiting. That’s the secret sauce of older women: zero patience for nonsense, infinite capacity for truth.

Matt Haig:
So the “impossible life” isn’t that she became powerful—it’s that society never expected her to.

Allende:
Exactly. Power was never missing. It was just underestimated.

Morrison:
Or uninvited.

Steinem:
Or buried under years of being told her story was over.

Lamott:
Until one day she says, “Guess what? I’m the sequel. And I’m better than the original.”

Matt Haig (closing):
I think Grace reminds us all—especially women—that it’s never too late to become the truest version of yourself. And maybe the world’s real problem is not the invisibility of older women, but its fear of what they might do once they realize no one’s watching.

Connection Beyond Time – Why Write to Maurice?

Mitch Albom – master of heartfelt mentorship stories (Tuesdays with Morrie)

Kazuo Ishiguro – novelist of memory, duty, and silent emotional inheritance (The Remains of the Day)

Rainer Maria Rilke – poet-philosopher whose Letters to a Young Poet speaks across time

Ocean Vuong – lyrical novelist whose On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter of pain and love across generations

Setting: A quiet writing retreat in the countryside. Rain taps gently against the windows. Everyone sits around a large oak table scattered with journals, loose papers, and cups of tea. Candlelight flickers. Outside, mist rolls through a field like memory taking form.

Topic: Is Grace passing on wisdom, seeking closure, or rewriting her legacy through this long email?

Matt Haig (Moderator):
In The Life Impossible, Grace writes an extended letter to a former student, Maurice.
She doesn’t send it.
She simply writes.
So I want to ask each of you:
What does it mean to write to someone who may never respond—and what does that act do for the writer’s soul?

Mitch Albom:
Writing to someone—especially a younger person—is an act of love and humility. It says: “Here’s what I’ve learned. Maybe it will matter to you.” Grace isn’t just remembering Maurice. She’s offering him a torch. That kind of legacy isn’t loud. It’s gentle. But it lasts.

Kazuo Ishiguro:
There’s also guilt beneath it, I think. Or longing. Like Stevens in The Remains of the Day, Grace might wonder: Did I miss something? Could I have done more for him? Writing becomes a way of making peace with the choices we can no longer undo. It’s not just a gift—it’s an apology, or a hope.

Rainer Maria Rilke: (his voice soft, poetic)
Letters are acts of devotion to the unseen. We do not write to be heard—we write to understand the silence. Maurice becomes a symbol. Grace is not only writing to him. She is writing through him, back to herself. Every word says: “I still exist. I still feel.” And in doing so, she begins again.

Ocean Vuong:
Yes—and let’s not forget the power of unsent letters. Writing without expectation is radical. It means: “I honor you, even if you never know it.” Grace is writing the truth she never dared speak aloud. And isn’t that what all real writing is? An invitation to intimacy—without needing control over the outcome?

Matt Haig:
So she’s not just giving him answers… she’s rewriting her own story?

Mitch Albom:
Exactly. And maybe—just maybe—she’s freeing both of them.

Ishiguro:
Sometimes the only way to speak to the past… is through the present we create with words.

Rilke:
And in doing so, we enter eternity. Quietly.

Vuong:
And beautifully.

Matt Haig (closing):
Thank you. Grace’s letter may never be read by Maurice, but in writing it, she finds her voice, her memory, and her meaning.
Sometimes, writing is not about changing the reader.
It’s about finally letting the writer feel seen.

Final Thoughts by Matt Haig

[The forest has grown quiet. The last page is nearly turned. Matt speaks again, softer now, but clearer, like someone who’s just made peace with something unspoken.]

Grace’s life was never truly impossible.
It was only waiting to be noticed.

In these five conversations, we heard from voices who know what it means to lose everything—and still choose to begin again.
They reminded us that power doesn’t always look like certainty. Sometimes it looks like a widow planting her feet in the soil of a threatened island, or an old woman writing a letter to a boy who once looked up to her.

I believe in stories that don’t end when they’re supposed to. I believe in quiet transformations.
And most of all, I believe in the people who are still here—still listening, still wondering if their life has another chapter left.

Grace is one of them.

So are you.

Short Bios:

Matt Haig – British author of The Midnight Library and The Life Impossible, known for blending mental health themes with hopeful fiction and philosophical depth.

Cheryl Strayed – Memoirist best known for Wild, a story of grief, healing, and self-discovery that inspired readers with its raw honesty and emotional power.

Elizabeth Gilbert – Author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic, celebrated for her candid exploration of love, loss, creativity, and spiritual awakening.

Joan Didion – Iconic essayist and novelist whose works, like The Year of Magical Thinking, explored grief, memory, and the fragility of reality.

C.S. Lewis – British writer and theologian best known for The Chronicles of Narnia and A Grief Observed, which deeply explored personal loss and faith.

Neil Gaiman – Award-winning author of American Gods and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, known for blending myth, fantasy, and emotional truth.

Haruki Murakami – Japanese novelist whose surreal and introspective works, like Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore, delve into loneliness, memory, and alternate realities.

Madeleine L’Engle – Beloved author of A Wrinkle in Time, whose work fused science, spirituality, and emotional growth, often aimed at young minds with deep questions.

Carl Jung – Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, whose theories on archetypes, the collective unconscious, and transformation remain highly influential.

Barbara Kingsolver – Novelist and biologist, known for The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, weaving ecology and social justice into literary storytelling.

Margaret Atwood – Renowned Canadian author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, exploring dystopia, feminism, and the future of the natural world.

Jane Goodall – Legendary primatologist and environmentalist, revered for her work with chimpanzees and her global advocacy for compassion toward all living beings.

Richard Powers – Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory, whose fiction connects human lives with deep ecological and evolutionary consciousness.

Isabel Allende – Chilean-American novelist of The House of the Spirits, exploring love, memory, and the resilience of women through generations.

Toni Morrison – Nobel laureate and author of Beloved, whose work gave voice to Black women’s experiences and explored memory, motherhood, and spiritual survival.

Gloria Steinem – Iconic feminist thinker, journalist, and activist, championing women’s rights and the liberation that comes with aging and self-reinvention.

Anne Lamott – Author of Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies, celebrated for her witty, vulnerable reflections on spirituality, writing, and imperfect humanity.

Mitch Albom – Author of Tuesdays with Morrie, whose works often explore intergenerational wisdom, mortality, and the redemptive power of love and learning.

Kazuo Ishiguro – Nobel Prize–winning author of The Remains of the Day, known for his elegant meditations on memory, regret, and emotional restraint.

Rainer Maria Rilke – Austro-German poet and writer of Letters to a Young Poet, whose lyrical prose speaks to solitude, beauty, and the creative soul’s path.

Ocean Vuong – Vietnamese-American poet and author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, exploring trauma, love, and identity in deeply intimate, lyrical language.