A celebration of life and its many contradictions, The Love of Impossible Sums is a contemporary London tale of interlocking love stories, sexual indiscretions and dysfunctional friendships. It explores the themes of love, loss, and the different ways people live their lives.
Oliver has lost his wife Eden to illness. Still grieving three years later, unable or unwilling to imagine a future without her, he finds himself stuck in a joyless existence. Then everything appears to change when on a bright December morning a stranger asks him for a light and then invites him to “They Them”, a poetry reading event by “a poet like no other”. The stranger is Alex, or They, and a ventriloquist’s dummy is Them, representing her dead husband Sam in a performance they had planned to do together. ‘Life is love and death,' They Them declare on stage.
Instantly drawn to each other by more than just their shared experience of loss, Oliver and Alex embark on a whirlwind romance. But tensions are being constantly stirred up by an ever-present cast of meddling characters, and the betrayals of a past full of lies and gratuitous disclosures soon begin to spill out and cause dangerous rifts…
"It’s difficult to imagine that an entire novel could almost completely revolve around a brief, but deep and emotional encounter between two people, but it does, and it does so in a way that captivates and pulls the reader into the consciousness of Ollie and the agony of resuming a life after losing the most important thing in it. I was so far drawn into the story that I regretted every time I had to put it down and looked forward to picking it up again to continue. The Love of Impossible Sums is a wonderful, emotional novel. I recommend it to everyone."
"THE LOVE OF IMPOSSIBLE SUMS is a beautifully cerebral and emotive story exploring the intricacies of loss, manipulation, and betrayal. Panayotis Cacoyannis’ writing is positively exquisite as he unravels the tangled web of deceit and guilt surrounding Ollie. Character-driven and occasionally surreal, this book is sophisticated, searching, and utterly of the moment."
"Just as Ollie Bridge is about to..., his friends cajole him into attending a poetry performance titled 'They Them'. There, he meets the poet, a woman named Alex… 'They Them' features Alex and a life-size puppet that represents Sam; Alex is a ventriloquist, and as she trades quips on stage with the avatar of her dead husband, a pervasive creepiness takes hold...
Cacoyannis writes very well on a small canvas. His previous works have had elements of satire, though it may be a stretch to see this latest as having such; these characters appear, at least, to be very serious as the author puts them through their paces—perhaps too serious. But maybe that is the point: They’re all navel gazers, well-meaning most of the time, but self-absorbed, nonetheless. They demonstrate a panoply of sexual variety, and bed-hopping is a recurring motif, with so-and-so being unfaithful with what’s-his/her-name with abandon. But to offset this, they all seem to be compulsive confessors; in fact, transgression followed by confession is shown to be a social tactic among this group, a strategy for leverage… Still, readers will come to like Ollie and care about the outcome of his new love with Alex, which holds real promise...
A rather strange but skillfully written study of a group of friends doing their best to get by.” Kirkus Reviews
