In this meditative and lyrical collection, Tom McAllister challenges himself to write a short essay for every year he's been alive. With each piece strictly limited to a maximum of 1,500 words, these 42 essays move fluidly through time, taking poetic leaps and ending up in places the reader does not expect. Funny, insightful, and open-hearted, It All Felt Impossible aims to tell the story of McAllister's life through brief glimpses, anecdotes, and fragments that radiate outward and grapple with his place in the culture at large. In the span of these essays,McAllister witnesses a monorail crash at a zoo, survives a tornado, plays youth sports for tyrannical coaches, grieves for dead parents, learns how to ride a bike as an adult, works long shifts making cheesesteaks, and more. Each annual offering is a search for meaning and connection, chronicled by an engaging and honest voice. A testament to the power of creative constraints and finding innovative ways to tell one's story, It All Felt Impossible: 42 Years in 42 Essays is a compelling document of an idiosyncratic human existence that volleys so skillfully between the mundane and the profound that readers will find themselves marveling at these essays long after they have read them.
Tom McAllister is the author of the novel How to Be Safe, which was named one of the best books of 2018 by Kirkus and The Washington Post. His other books are the novel The Young Widower's Handbook and the memoir Bury Me in My Jersey. His short stories and essays have been published in The Sun, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Black Warrior Review, and many other places. He is the nonfiction editor at Barrelhouse and co-hosts the Book Fight! podcast with Mike Ingram. He lives in New Jersey and teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers-Camden.
"These are my favorite kinds of essays: honest, concise, funny, self-aware, and engaged with the world. Whether Tom McAllister is writing about dogs, jobs, marriage, death, friendship, sports, or anything else, It All Felt Impossible combines the brisk pace of a good memoir with the inquiry, insight, and breadth of the best essay collections. The result is one of the freshest and most engaging books I've read in years." — Justin St. Germain, author of Son of a Gun: A Memoir
"In It All Felt Impossible: 42 Years in 42 Essays, Tom McAllister taps into the collective worries and joys of us all by using experiences that while uniquely his own are ours, too. This reflective collection unfurls a life full of beauty, humor, curiosity, and wonder. It allows us to see that while the years may continue to roll on, our hearts and minds keep track of it all by anchoring us to what was and what can be." — Athena Dixon, author of The Loneliness Files
"People used to say, and maybe still do, that just before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Leaving aside that if that were true, we the living wouldn't know it, It All Felt Impossible is a life flashing by in the form of a book, incredibly fast and unbelievably rich, in all its universal specificity—the good dogs and bad haircuts, first crushes and brushes with death, the memories we dream up (the fiction we all write), all the fear, grief, stupidity, hope, and joy we get to live through, as 'a person who is alive.' This book is so funny and honest, and so full of heart-breaking love." — Elisa Gabbert, author of Any Person Is the Only Self
"Tom McAllister's It All Felt Impossible is a beautiful portrait of a slow and tender passage of time, and what it is to live through several eras of a life with a sense of gratitude, humor, warmth, and generosity. I felt carried, warmly, through these many eras." — Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
