Frederick Fife is a warm-hearted old soul who’s something of the polar opposite of say, Ebeneezer Scrooge: he has the milk of human kindness in every vein and flowing out of his ears, but he’s penniless and soon to be homeless. Then one day he spies a man who could be his twin looking quite unwell, having fallen out of a wheelchair near the river. Fred tries to help him, but after a hard trip Fred is concussed and his doppelganger is in the river. Fred awakes to find himself dressed in another man’s robes, and in another man’s life. He tries in vain to tell them the truth, but they all assume “Bernard’s” dementia is just getting worse. The nursing home has good, regular food; a comfortable chair; and people to talk to. Although it doesn’t sit too well with him, the news that “Frederick Fife’s” body has been pulled out of the river prompts Fred to give in and begin enjoying himself — and then Bernard’s estranged daughter shows up.The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is an impressive debut: although its story of human connection would be a hit by itself, Johnston adds to that the topics of dementia, elder care, and alcoholism — all of which are not simply thrown in, but instrumental to making the hit an absolute home run.

Fred, it should be noted, is the sweetest and most adorable of characters. He is the anti-Scrooge, the anti-Ove. Well, maybe not the anti-Ove, bcause Ove could be sweet in his way — but neither character were open to the hearts of others. Fred is a man who has loved, and deeply, and though the cruelities of life — his beloved Dawn’s miscarriage, their inability to have kids, and her death from cancer — might have rendered others cold and cynical, Fred has continued living with gratitude and warmth. Problem is, he has no one to be warm to: he has no relatives, no family, and he’s bankrupt from Dawn’s medical bills. His being confused for “Bernard Greer”, a notorious sourpuss, suddenly gives Fred not only material shelter, but people who to be a friend to. He becomes fast friends with Albert, for instance, a man deep in the throes of dementia but who is absolutely merry and dotes on his wife, Val, seeing her with the same eyes his infatuated teen self did decades ago. Fred has an enormous affect on the life of those in the nursing home, patients and staff alike: one young couple on the nursing staff are brought together by his advice!

This novel is three stories of unequal weight: primarily, we’re following Fred as he begins learning about Bernard was and adapts his behavior to better fit in. Bernie had an issue hearing, for instance, and sometimes wet the bed. We get one nurse’s point of view: overworked Denise is increasingly aware that her husband is cheating on her — with her friend, yet! — and falling into the bottle even as she tries to figure out why Bernard is suddenly so much more friendly. Eventually she and Fred/Bernard’s stories become conjoined. More powerfully, though, we follow a young girl growing up and watching her big sister be stricken with leukemia, finding no support from her father who is a tyrannical grump with a habit of lashing out with things. This, we learn in time — when Hannah appears in Fred’s room — is Bernard’s long estranged daughter, who hates Bernie for abandoning her and her mother at her sister’s funeral. Fred is thus put into a hell of a pickle: does he dare pretend to be Bernard and help this woman forgive her father, whose returned and unsent letters indicate that he hated himself for what he did and yearned for reconnection with his daughter?

This is an “all the feels” kind of book, one that smartly incorporates Johnston’s history working in elder care. I do hope Johnston writes more: this title reminded me of Rachel Joyce, who I discovered and fell over the moon for this year.