The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells: A Novel

A psychiatric treatment transports a woman to other lives she might have lived in this romantic story by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Less.

“The premise of this novel isn’t that a woman travels through time; it’s that the impossible happens once to each of us. . . . What this wonderful novel teaches us is how magic works.” —John Irving

One of the New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of 2013

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 the Great of 1985 finds herself transported to remarkably similar lives in different eras—as a bohemian and adulteress in 1918, and a devoted wife and mother in 1941—fraught with familiar tensions and difficult choices.

Traveling through time, the modern Greta learns that each reality has its own losses and rewards, and that her alternate selves are unpredictable, driven by their own desires and needs. And as the final treatment looms, one of these other selves could change everything.

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

“A love letter to Greenwich Village, in three indelible eras, and to the intricacies of love itself. Absolutely gorgeous!” —Paula McLain

“Elegiac in tone, this tale of time travel, loss, and compromise is as precisely engineered as a Swiss watch. [Greer] manages the complexities of this temporal round robin with precision and panache.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Andrew Sean Greer is one of the most talented writers around, feeling and funny, with a genuinely fine prose style and a sensibility to match.” —Michael Chabon

© 2024 Ecco (Ebook): 9780062213846

Release date

Ebook: April 16, 2024