Member Reviews
Catherine Newman has been one of my favourite writers for something like twenty years - and I adored We All Want Impossible Things - so when I say I was desperate to read this book... And I think I may have loved it even more than Impossible Things? Middle aged and menopausal Rocky is spending a week in Connecticut with her family - husband, almost-grown (and brilliant, charming) children, and, for a couple of days in there, her ageing parents.
Catherine Newman writes so brilliantly, wisely, kindly about hard things with such a light touch. This book made me laugh and cry. Everyone - including Chicken the cat - felt entirely real and I felt like I was on the vacation with them. I was bereft when I finished reading and had to return to real life.
Narrated by the self-deprecating Rocky with a pithy humour, Sandwich spans a week in the holiday let she and her husband have rented for almost twenty years. They and their grown-up children cram themselves into the tiny cottage, joined half-way through the week by Rocky’s parents. It’s a holiday like any other over the past two decades but by the time the family goes their separate ways, secrets will have been revealed, an understanding that somethings must end gained and the joy of new beginnings embraced.
Sandwich lives up to its blurb’s feelgood billing while dealing with issues of mental health, ageing and loss, unafraid to explore how it feels to be menopausal or reproductive health and the right to choose. Gazing at her children with adoration, Rocky remembers the early years of devastating exhaustion, the desperation for an uninterrupted night’s sleep and the constant anxiety of parenthood. When her parents arrive, she can hardly bare to witness their increasing frailty, well-practiced at anticipatory grief. She’s an engaging narrator, likeable and believable, given to a tactlessness that both amuses and embarrasses her children who adore her in return as does her husband despite frequent tongue lashings. A thoroughly enjoyable novel, which may not stay with me for long but comforting and entertaining, nevertheless, and far from frivolous, too.
Sandwich follows a family over the course of a week as they take their annual holiday to Cape Cod. There were some funny moments in this book and also some powerful themes. I did not love this book but can see that Catherine Newman’s writing is powerful and resonates with her readers.
This story really struck a chord with me, being mid 50s and menopausal! I really understood the character and what she was going through! A short story so read over 2 days! A great mixture of terrible teens, marriage problems and elderly parents, plus the dreaded menopause. Second book by this author, always enjoyable
I enjoyed Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things so I appreciated the opportunity to read her new novel - Sandwich. She captures what it's like to be a woman struggling with menopausal symptoms, marital strains, ageing parents, motherhood.
The most luminous, passionate account of family love I've ever read. Rocky, a self confessed narcissist aged 54 is the filling in the annual holiday sandwich that has her devoted elderly parents on one side, and her two grown up, and moved away, children, plus girlfriend Maya, on the other. Not to mention the huge old cat Chicken, who comes with them.
As they drift back into their usual routine - the beach tram at 1pm, fresh lobster, ice cream at the end - the family shimmers with life, joy and sadness. Huge secrets are finally released. Ricky's mom has a health incident, which shows the fragility of life. The possibility of new life points to the perpetuation of life.
Rocky is going through menopause with disbelief and hilarity at its embarrassments. Her husband Nick, the analytical sort, is not prone to sharing his feelings, and it causes occasional friction. Rocky swims, she loves, she grieves. What a wonderful portrait of mid life.
I gulped down this sandwich in two very satisfying bites.
This is a proper heartwarming, a family I felt I knew.
Tons of touching moments that are all so relatable, no matter what the topic was, marriage, babies, aging parents.
It made me all nostalgic for my own childhood and long for a sandwich on the beach. 😁
Very enjoyable