The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells - Couverture souple

From the critically acclaimed author of the NYT bestseller The Confessions of Max Tivoli comes The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, the rapturously romantic story of a woman who undergoes electroshock therapy and finds herself transported to the other lives she might have lived, where she must wrestle with the unpredictability of love and the consequences of even her most carefully considered choices.

The story begins in 1985. After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the abandonment of her long-time lover, Nathan, Greta Wells sinks into an enveloping state of depression. At the suggestion of her doctor, and under the watchful eye of her flamboyant Aunt Ruth, Greta tries a radical therapy. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta suddenly finds herself transported to the lives she might have lived had she been born in a different time.

During the course of her treatment, Greta repeatedly travels to 1918, 1941, and back to 1985. In these other worlds, she finds her brother, alive and well, though fearfully masking his true personality to escape the ostracism of an earlier age's prejudices. Here, too, she finds her former lover, Nathan, now her devoted husband. Will he be unfaithful to her in this life, as well? And if he is, will she behave exactly as she did before? In 1941 she is a devoted mother; in 1918 she is a bohemian adulteress.

As the cycle of treatments nears its end, tension mounts over the actions each Greta takes in her other lives. Married Greta has no intention of being abandoned by Nathan in 1985. Amorous Greta refuses to give up her young lover, Leo, for the stuffy respectability of being a doctor's wife in WWII. And what will happen once the Gretas stumble upon the secret for getting off this time-travel merry-go-round? Each reality has its own losses, its own rewards; each extracts a different price. Who will choose to remain in which life?

Magically atmospheric--whisking us from the gas-lit streets and horse-drawn carriages of the West Village in 1918, to a martini-fueled lunch at the Oak Room in 1941 ( my handbag the size of an anvil...the ladies hats floating by like jellyfish ), gorgeously written and propulsive, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells casts a spell over the reader and will guarantee Greer's reputation as one of the most gifted writers of his generation.

1985. After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the breakup with her longtime lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in different eras.

During the course of her treatment, Greta cycles between her own time and alternate lives in 1918, where she is a bohemian adulteress, and 1941, which transforms her into a devoted mother and wife. Separated by time and social mores, Greta's three lives are remarkably similar, fraught with familiar tensions and difficult choices. Each reality has its own losses, its own rewards, and each extracts a different price. And the modern Greta learns that her alternate selves are unpredictable, driven by their own desires and needs.

As her final treatment looms, questions arise: What will happen once each Greta learns how to remain in one of the other worlds? Who will choose to stay in which life?

Magically atmospheric, achingly romantic, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells beautifully imagines "what if" and wondrously wrestles with the impossibility of what could be.