Impossible People HC

In her keenly observed graphic memoir, Impossible People, celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery.

Opening at the culmination of a disastrous trip to Puerto Rico, the first page of Impossible People finds Julia standing stupefied in the middle of the jungle beside a rental Jeep she's just crashed. From this moment, the story flashes back to the beginning of her five-year journey towards sobriety that includes group therapy sessions, relapses, an ill-fated relationship, terrible dates, and an unceremonious eviction from her New York City apartment. Far from the typical addiction narrative that follows an upward trajectory from rock bottom to rehab to recovery, Impossible People portrays the lesser told but more common story: That the road to recover is not always linear. With unflinching honesty, Wertz details the arduous, frustrating, and hilarious story of trying and failing and trying again.

"No one but Julia Wertz could make such a devastating story of addiction and recovery so damn funny and charming. This book makes me miss New York desperately, and miss drinking and singledom not at all. Best of all, it made me laugh out loud! Read it."
-- Adam Conover, comedian and creator of Adam Ruins Everything

"Julia Wertz makes the personal effortlessly universal, sneaking past our usual defenses with grace, charm, and/or a fart joke. Impossible People is a funny, sad, hopeful, messy, charming--and true--story, and I loved every part of it...It's a new height for an already towering cartoonist."
-- Ryan North, author of How to Take Over the World and the graphic novel adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five.