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THE POSSIBILITY OF EVERYTHINGNow Available!
In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her marriage, her profession, and her place in the larger world. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, she was primed for change. Into her stagnant routine dropped Dodo, her three-year-old daughter Maya's curiously disruptive imaginary friend. Confused and worried about how to handle Dodo's apparent hold on their daughter, Edelman and her husband made the unlikely choice to take her to Maya healers in Belize, hoping that a shaman might help them banish Dodo—and, as they came to understand, all he represented—from their lives. An account of how an otherwise mainstream mother and wife finds herself making an extremely unorthodox choice, The Possibility of Everything chronicles the magical week in Central America that transformed Edelman from a person whose past had led her to believe only in the visible and the "proven" to someone open to the idea of larger, unseen forces. This deeply affecting, beautifully written memoir of a family's emotional journey explores what Edelman and her husband went looking for in the jungle and what they ultimately discovered—as parents, as spouses, and as ordinary people—about the things that possess and destroy, or that can heal us all.
Buy the Book:
 PraiseLA Times Bestseller! "In search of faith she can wrap her arms around, Edelman set down fear and has revealed all of herself with beauty and candor, innocence and intelligence, wisdom and clarity. In her fascinating and honest account of a one woman's quest for wholeness and healing for her daughter, herself, and her family, she gives us hope." —Jennifer Lauck, author of Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found "Hope Edelman takes her readers on the kind of journey every mother will make—into hope over reason, faith without understanding. Motherless Daughters gave us what no other book did—honesty and solace and companionship—from someone who'd been there, too. Readers will say the same of The Possibility of Everything." —Kathryn Harrison, author of The Kiss "From its gripping opening to its moving conclusion, The Possibility of Everything takes you on a spirited journey that gracefully interweaves details of early motherhood with reflections on faith and transformation, all set against the beauty and wonder of a foreign place. A thoughtful and compelling read by the accomplished Hope Edelman." —Cathi Hanauer, author of Sweet Ruin "Edelman writes like a dream and like a dreamer, with a novelist's rhythm and a journalist's unsparing eye. The Possibility of Everything kept me gasping and turning pages, awed by Edelman's unwillingness to compromise the truth. This book makes everything seem possible—except putting it down." —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of No Time to Wave Goodbye Interviews & ReviewsInterviews
November 23, 2009
November 3, 2009
October 20, 2009
September 23, 2009
September 20, 2009
September 17, 2009
September 15, 2009
September 14, 2009
September 11, 2009 Reviews
November 22, 2009
November 13, 2009
November 1, 2009
October 27, 2009
October 27, 2009
October Issue 2009
October 8, 2009
September 30, 2009
September 28, 2009
September 26, 2009
September 23, 2009
September 15, 2009
September 15, 2009 FAQ
A: I was not in any way the kind of person who would've come up with this plan on my own. But my husband was very alternative-minded, and my daughter's babysitter at the time, who had grown up in Nicaragua, very strongly believed that we were dealing with a matter of otherworldly origins. Also, I was at a very low point in my life, struggling in my career, having difficulties in my marriage, homesick as a New Yorker in California, and the idea of taking a magical, adventurous journey held a great deal of appeal.
A: Not until after we came back. I went to Belize as a mother and a tourist, not a memoirist or journalist. After we'd been back for few months we started sharing the story of our time there with some of our friends, who encouraged me to write it as a book. It was then that I realized I had a complete story, with an easily identifiable beginning, middle, and end; a character arc; and terrific supporting "characters." But I wasn't thinking in those terms at all when I was down there.
A: Before the trip, I was very scientifically minded, completely wedded to empirical thinking, and I believed in very little other than what could be visibly proven. Whenever I had an experience that didn't fit in this box, I'd come up with a new way to rationalize it so my world view didn't have to change. When I came back from Belize, I was a person more willing to believe in an unseen world. That doesn't mean I jumped right into living a spiritual life, or that I wholeheartedly began to embrace mysticism or religion, but that I became far more comfortable living with ambiguity. Now I can accept that some phenomena can't be proven or explained to scientific satisfaction, but are nonetheless real.
A: I kept a journal and took about 100 photos on the initial trip, so I was able to rely on those when writing, although they tended to be mostly of quirky, non-dramatic moments. I also went back to Belize in the spring of 2008 for a workshop in Maya Spiritual Healing, to learn more about what we'd experienced and also to revisit the sites in the book and track down the people we met on that first trip. We went there as a family later in the year, and I went again in 2009 to finish up the research. And then memoir, by nature, is infused by memory, so my husband and I talked a great deal about what we remembered from the trip. I also interviewed friends and family members to ask them what they remembered about the months leading up to our departure.
A: To me they're two sides of the same coin. Those who've lost someone close to them become people who are forever searching to recapture what was lost. I didn't expect—didn't even want—my mother to be a character in this book, but it was impossible to write about going on a spiritual journey without examining what I was searching for, which brought me back to the story of her early death and its aftermath. You can't find something unless you've already identified it as missing, right? And that brought me back to memories of my grandmother, who had been a very important and loving influence in my childhood. I realized that what was missing most from my own experience of motherhood was the opportunity to draw from their knowledge, and so in a very unexpected sense, the trip through Maya lands, where ancestor worship has historically been so important, also became an opportunity to reconnect with the women who'd preceded me.
A: As I began writing the manuscript, I had the impulse to ground the story in something larger than myself. Through reading books about the geography and history of Belize and the Maya, I discovered the experience my family had there was very much a function of the place, its history, its native people, and their relationship to the land. You can't really understand the simplicity or the power of Maya healing unless you educate yourself about Maya cosmology and mythology, much of which is literally written in the stars. So I made the decision to put that material in the book to give readers a sense of the bigger picture, even though I knew I risked having some of them skip over those passages to get back to the main storyline.
A: I've reconnected with the Belizeans I wrote about, and have since formed personal and professional connections with others in San Ignacio and San Antonio. As I mentioned above, when I went there on vacation in 2000 I was traveling as a mother and a tourist. I was focused on helping my daughter and on seeing what I could of the country along the way. I was most moved by the kindness, the generosity, and the humor of the people we met back then, which I tried to convey in the writing. I was also struck by how rich the culture was in so many ways, and how spiritually impoverished I felt in comparison. When I returned seven years later, I traveled with a different set of eyes: both because I was wearing a researcher's hat this time, and also because my world view had changed so much as a result of that first trip. This time, it was impossible not to notice and be kicked into action by the bone-crushing poverty of the region, and it immediately became clear to me that I couldn't take money from a publisher without giving back to the people and places that gave me the story. So I've been using a portion of book earnings to support programs in the Cayo District that advance literacy and education for children, as well as foundations dedicated to medicinal rainforest education and preservation. I've also been organizing an annual book drive for the San Ignacio Library, and this year a portion of the TPOE earnings will pay high school tuition for two Cayo students whose families otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. Hopefully next year we'll be able to up that to four, or more.
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For more info on Hope's journey and her charitable involvement in Belize, please visit the