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 sure 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 pals saying, “Proper!!???”
The novel is a couple of household that has been visiting the identical Cape Cod seaside rental for 20 years and narrated by the lovably flawed, boundary-challenged 55-year-old mom Rachel (“Rocky”). She’s on trip together with her husband, Nick, their two twenty-something youngsters, 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 time learn as a result of it takes place in the summertime throughout a week-long seaside trip, and, properly, take a look at that huge summery ocean-weathered home on the quilt. It’s so fully enjoyable and laugh-out-loud humorous the best way summer time reads are alleged to be.
However! Do I have to remind you that is Catherine Newman — creator of We All Need Not possible Issues, and about one million different tales which will or might not have rearranged your worldview about every little thing 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 after 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 like “melting popsicles,” we find out about Rocky’s previous, a sequence of painful reminiscences 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 additionally so horrible and ridiculous.”
A lot of the sweetness and wit of Sandwich lies within the interactions together with her hyper-articulate youngsters and in Rocky’s on a regular basis observations of parenting grown youngsters. Asking your child should 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 accidentally, then unliking and re-liking in a panic. (“Sorry, you guys, I’m the worst!” is a Rocky chorus.) Watching your youngsters with out actually listening to them, in disbelief that you simply made these folks “from scratch.” The vacancy you are feeling whenever you return house 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 seaside. (She’s at all times 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 youngsters, 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 simply nearly don’t discover how heavy — or possibly Newman would say “full” — your coronary heart turns into whereas holding Rocky’s unhappiness. (The phrase “At first slowly, then abruptly” involves thoughts right here.) As she turns into mired within the dredged-up sorrow from her previous, Rocky can be coping with the very in-the-moment actuality and confusion of menopause, and coming to phrases with what she calls a lifetime of “complete reproductive mayhem.” There are temper swings and sizzling flashes, however Newman’s rendering of menopause is extra nuanced and private — and typically 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.
