Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Ayelet Waldman

Ayelet Waldman

Ayelet Waldman is a novelist and essayist who was formerly a lawyer. She is noted for her self-revelatory essays, and for her writing about the changing expectations of motherhood...

 and released in 2006.

Plot summary

Emilia Greenleaf is an attorney living in New York city with her husband, John Woolf. Emilia is stepmother to John's remarkablly intelligent four-year-old son, William. William lives primarily with his mother, the medical doctor Carolyn Soule. It is Emilia's job, however, to pick up William from his nursery school every Wednesday afternoon. When she picks him up, Emilia is often subjected to snide glances and whispers from the other mothers because, it transpires, her relationship with her husband began when he was still with his wife. They had an office affair, and eventually the marriage dissolved. The reader also learns early on that Emilia and John recently lost their own child together, a girl they named Isabel. They had the baby home for only one day, as she died overnight of SIDS

Sudden infant death syndrome

Sudden infant death syndrome is marked by the sudden death of an infant that is unexpected by medical history, and remains unexplained after a thorough forensic autopsy and a detailed death scene investigation. An infant is at the highest risk for SIDS during sleep, which is why it is sometimes...

 in Emilia's arms after being fed.

The bulk of the story deals with the results of Isabel's death, including the strain this puts on Emilia and John's marriage, as well as Emilia's feelings towards William. Emilia does not particularly like William (in fact, she describes him as "insufferable" early on in the story), but tries to be a good parent to him. This is hindered by the fact that William serves as his mother's mouthpiece, and sometimes speaks in a very matter-of-fact way about Isabel's death.

Film adaptation

A film adaptation of the novel has been made with Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...

 starring in the lead role. The film was directed by Don Roos

Don Roos

Donald Paul Roos is an American screenwriter and film director.-Life and career:Roos was born in New York. He attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana...

 and also starred Scott Cohen and Charlie Tahan. Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...

was initially signed to play the lead role, but Portman replaced her after she abruptly dropped out of the project. Production began in November 2008.

External links

• Love and Other Impossible Pursuits at author's website