Salma El-Wardany’s These Impossible Things is the latest pick for Jenna Bush Hager’s Today show book club.
El-Wardany’s debut novel, scheduled for publication Tuesday by Grand Central, tells the story of three Muslim friends (one named Jenna) in London who grow apart, but are reunited in the face of a sudden crisis. A critic for Kirkus wrote that the book is “blessed by a light touch and evenhanded treatment of its two generations of characters.”
Hager said the book is “the perfect story to lose yourself in while you soak up the sun.”
“Just like in my own life, this book is about three strong women who are the heroines of their own stories,” Hager said. “This book perfectly portrays the power, vulnerability and solace I have always found in female friendship.”
El-Wardany told Today that she wrote the novel in the span of one month during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The whole book just spilled out [of] me,” she said. “It kind of came back to that old adage of if there’s a story that you want to see that’s not there, then you better write it. And so that’s one of the reasons I wrote it as well, because I just thought, I just want to tell a story of [Muslim women’s] lived experience that doesn’t make us the butt of a joke.”
Hager announced the selection on Instagram, writing, “Salma’s novel shows the power of treasuring those close to us and demonstrates love in all forms.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
