‘The Impossible Thing' Review: A Cliffhanger of a Tale

Wall Street Journal

15-05-2025

The innocent victim in Belinda Bauer's novel 'The Impossible Thing' is, oddly enough, a bird. A guillemot, to be precise, whose looks are unremarkable but whose eggs can be astonishing. Sometimes brightly colored and decorated with spirals or loops, these natural jewels—found only on perilous heights where the birds roost—were long sought after by collectors. This is the story of 30 identical beauties, all laid by the same guillemot on the same Yorkshire cliff, which are repeatedly snatched and sold over the course of three decades. All of these prizes later vanish, including one particularly prized by wealthy egg-fanciers. Around the mystery of the fate of the so-called Metland Egg, Ms. Bauer constructs a multigenerational drama as captivating as the fabled object itself.
Greed, love and obsession shape a plot rich in humor and suspense. It begins with a girl, 'pale as milk and skinny as a straw,' lowered on a rope to a cliff face, 'where the edge of England plunged three hundred sheer feet into the indigo depths.' The year is 1926 and Celie is poor, as are most 'climmers' who raid seabird eggs for a bare living. But she finds the treasure for which an aristocrat offers 50 pounds—not to her, but to the ruthless broker George Ambler. Yet George, for all his villainy, emerges as a complex character, as does Celie, her soulmate, Robert, and even minor figures in this Dickensian tale.
Alongside Celie's story Ms. Bauer stages a present-day adventure. Its two young heroes, Nick and Patrick, are both convincing and unintentionally funny—Nick because he considers himself brilliant and Patrick because he is. Their escapade begins when a languishing Metland Egg is stolen from Nick's attic. Determined to retrieve it, the duo soon confront several egg-obsessed individuals, ranging from fanatical protectors to criminal hoarders. (Ownership of wild eggs became illegal in Britain in the early 1980s.) After one violent encounter, Nick, though cowed, insists that they 'shouldn't give up so easily.' Patrick, meanwhile, 'thought that easily sounded like the best way to give up.' Needless to say, they don't.