The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife

by Anna Johnston ★★★★☆

Frederick Fife is 82, broke, friendless, and still grief-stricken from the death of his wife a decade prior. He's effectively hit rock-bottom, when a chance series of events transforms his life. While walking near the local river, he encounters a man in a wheelchair feeding the seagulls. Except, as Fred gets closer, he realizes that unfortunately the man's feeding days are over: he has died in the act. Fred tries to find someone to help, but in doing so he trips, simultaneously knocking his head on a rock and jettisoning the dead man from his wheelchair directly into the river, where his body is swept away by the current. To further complicate things, Fred had draped his sweater—with his wallet in its pocket—over the dead man's shoulders.

When the caregivers from Wattle River Nursing Home discover him, they mistake Fred for the dead man, Bernard Greer, to whom he bears a striking resemblance. In his slightly disoriented state, Fred can't fully articulate what happened and is unable to immediately correct them. Once they get back to the nursing home and Fred is more lucid, he still can't get anyone to believe him. It turns out that Bernard was displaying early signs of dementia before his demise, and so when Fred insists he is not Bernard, the staff write it off to an addled elderly mind. Eventually Fred gives in and starts to embrace a new life as Bernard, at least for a day or two since a comfortable bed and a warm meal at Wattle River Nursing Home are far better than living out his days on the streets.

What follows is a saccharinely sweet and sappy series of events, where Fred befriends fellow residents, engineers romance between nursing home staff, and even works to repair Bernard's relationship with his estranged daughter. "His mother had always said that Fred had been born with an extra helping of love in his heart, and he thrived on sharing that love with those around him." Fred is kind and caring, charming and considerate, and he becomes a magnet of positivity for both residents and staff at the nursing home.

I struggled to understand how a character who at one point is described as "the most decent man I've ever met" comes to find himself completely friendless at age 82. In the book, it's explained away as all of his remaining friends "moved or passed away in the months and years after losing Dawn", but for someone so generous of spirit, the odds that he'd be totally alone seem low.

That, like the events that lead to Fred becoming Bernard and several other coincidences in the novel, skewed too heavily toward convenience for me. For someone with a bit of cynicism (or a lot, like me), the story will likely feel too contrived, coincidental, and overly sappy. But if you can set that aside, and you are in the mood to immerse yourself in a what the subtitle describes as "A Heartwarming Story of Redemption and Forgiveness", you can emerge from your emotional time spent with Fred feeling warm and fuzzy down to the bottom of your heart.