Our good friend Catherine Newman (of chilly swimming and teenage boys and home tour fame) has a brand new novel out referred to as Sandwich and simply to make certain I don’t bury the lead right here, I couldn’t adore it extra, can’t cease speaking about it, can’t cease texting full paragraphs to my mates saying, “Proper!!???”
The novel is a few household that has been visiting the identical Cape Cod seashore rental for 20 years and narrated by the lovably flawed, boundary-challenged 55-year-old mom Rachel (“Rocky”). She’s on trip along with her husband, Nick, their two twenty-something kids, Willa and Jamie, and Jamie’s longtime girlfriend, Maya. Rocky’s aged dad and mom make a cameo, too, as a result of that is now Rocky’s life, determining her position sandwiched between the 2 generations. Technically, Sandwich is a summer season learn as a result of it takes place in the summertime throughout a week-long seashore trip, and, nicely, take a look at that huge summery ocean-weathered home on the duvet. It’s so fully enjoyable and laugh-out-loud humorous the best way summer season reads are imagined to be.
However! Do I have to remind you that is Catherine Newman — writer of We All Need Not possible Issues, and about 1,000,000 different tales which will or might not have rearranged your worldview about all the pieces from empty nesting to elevating teenagers to consuming alcohol — and I can’t consider anybody who writes extra brazenly about the best way pleasure and grief stroll in lockstep, particularly once we are taking good care of youngsters, taking good care of aged dad and mom, taking good care of our complicated getting old our bodies. In Sandwich, between fairy-lighted clam-shack dinners and ocean sunsets that appear to be “melting popsicles,” we find out about Rocky’s previous, a collection of painful recollections wrapped in darkish secrets and techniques. “It’s so crushingly lovely, being human,” 55-year-old Rocky says to her 20-year-old daughter within the prologue — a line which could sound dealbreaker-corny to the Newman-uninitiated. Till Rocky’s eye-rolling daughter replies: “But in addition so horrible and ridiculous.”
A lot of the sweetness and wit of Sandwich lies within the interactions along with her hyper-articulate kids and in Rocky’s on a regular basis observations of parenting grown kids. Asking your child in the event you’re allowed to make use of the phrase “That slaps.” (Verdict: In all probability not.) Liking an Instagram publish on her son’s crush by chance, then unliking and re-liking in a panic. (“Sorry, you guys, I’m the worst!” is a Rocky chorus.) Looking at your youngsters with out actually listening to them, in disbelief that you just made these folks “from scratch.” The vacancy you are feeling while you return dwelling from a trip with out them.
The holiday itself provides an additional layer of relatability: the rental’s bathroom clogs on the primary night time. The Jean Naté lotion within the toilet that smells like “everybody’s 1975 mom.” The lack to get the household out of the home earlier than 1:00 p.m. The epic sandwich packing for the seashore. (She’s all the time making sandwiches.) The meals, oh man, the meals! “Why does this style so good?” Rocky asks when she’s consuming a whitefish-smeared Ritz cracker at cocktail hour, and Jamie solutions, “Horseradish? Lemon? Trip?” She is besotted by her grownup kids, their fast wits, their jobs with start-ups, their compassion, their our bodies. “They’re so grown! So younger. Mine and never mine, as ever they’ve been.”
It’s all so head-noddingly charming that you just nearly don’t discover how heavy — or possibly Newman would say “full” — your coronary heart turns into whereas holding Rocky’s disappointment. (The phrase “At first slowly, then suddenly” involves thoughts right here.) As she turns into mired within the dredged-up sorrow from her previous, Rocky can also be coping with the very in-the-moment actuality and confusion of menopause, and coming to phrases with what she calls a lifetime of “whole reproductive mayhem.” There are temper swings and scorching flashes, however Newman’s rendering of menopause is extra nuanced and private — and generally even hilarious. Like this description of forgetfulness:
Proper?!?? Congratulations on all of the rave opinions, Catherine! We simply love your e book.
P.S. Catherine’s joyful home tour and a darkly humorous e book we are able to’t cease enthusiastic about.
