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Our friend Catherine Newman (of cold swimming<\/a> and teenage boys<\/a> and house tour fame<\/a>) has a new novel out called Sandwich<\/em><\/a><\/em> and just to be sure I don\u2019t bury the lead here, I couldn\u2019t love it more, can\u2019t stop talking about it, can\u2019t stop texting full paragraphs to my friends saying, \u201cRight!!???\u201d<\/p>\n The novel<\/a> is about a family that has been visiting the same Cape Cod beach rental for 20 years and narrated by the lovably flawed, boundary-challenged 55-year-old mother Rachel (\u201cRocky\u201d). She\u2019s on vacation with her husband, Nick, their two twenty-something hyper-articulate children, Willa and Jamie, and Jamie\u2019s longtime girlfriend, Maya. Rocky\u2019s elderly parents make a cameo, too, because this is now Rocky\u2019s life, figuring out her role sandwiched between the two generations. Technically, Sandwich<\/em> is a summer read because it takes place in the summer during a week-long beach vacation, and, well, look at that big summery ocean-weathered house on the cover. It\u2019s so completely<\/em> fun and laugh-out-loud funny the way summer reads are supposed to be.<\/p>\n But! Do I need to remind you this is Catherine Newman \u2014 author of We All Want Impossible Things<\/a><\/em>, and about a million other stories that may or may not have rearranged your worldview about everything from empty nesting<\/a> to raising teens<\/a> to drinking alcohol<\/a> \u2014 and I can\u2019t think of anyone who writes more openly about the way joy and grief walk in lockstep, especially when we are taking care of kids, taking care of elderly parents, taking care of our confusing aging bodies. In Sandwich<\/em>, between fairy-lighted clam-shack dinners and ocean sunsets that look like \u201cmelting popsicles,\u201d we learn about Rocky\u2019s past, a series of painful memories wrapped in dark secrets. \u201cIt\u2019s so crushingly beautiful, being human,\u201d 55-year-old Rocky says to her 20-year-old daughter in the prologue \u2014 a line which might sound dealbreaker-corny to the Newman-uninitiated. Until Rocky\u2019s eye-rolling daughter replies: \u201cBut also so terrible and ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the beauty and wit of Sandwich<\/em> lies in the interactions with her politically active hyper-articulate children and in Rocky\u2019s everyday observations of parenting grown children. Asking your kid if you\u2019re allowed to use the phrase \u201cThat slaps.\u201d (Verdict: Probably not.) Liking an Instagram post on her son\u2019s crush by accident, then unliking and re-liking in a panic. (\u201cSorry, you guys, I\u2019m the worst!\u201d is a Rocky refrain.) Staring at your kids without really listening to them, in disbelief that you made these people \u201cfrom scratch.\u201d The emptiness you feel when you return home from a vacation without them.<\/p>\n The vacation itself adds an extra layer of relatability: the rental\u2019s toilet clogs on the first night. The Jean Nat\u00e9 lotion in the bathroom that smells like \u201ceveryone\u2019s 1975 mother.\u201d The inability to get the family out of the house before 1:00 p.m. The epic sandwich packing for the beach. (She\u2019s always making sandwiches.) The food, oh man, the food! \u201cWhy does this taste so good?\u201d Rocky asks when she\u2019s eating a whitefish-smeared Ritz cracker at cocktail hour, and Jamie answers, \u201cHorseradish? Lemon? Vacation?\u201d She is besotted by her adult children, their quick wits, their jobs with start-ups, their compassion, their bodies. \u201cThey are so grown! So young. Mine and not mine, as ever they have been.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s all so head-noddingly charming that you almost don\u2019t notice how heavy \u2014 or maybe Newman would say \u201cfull\u201d \u2014 your heart becomes while holding Rocky\u2019s sadness. (The phrase \u201cAt first slowly, then all at once\u201d comes to mind here.) As she becomes mired in the dredged-up sorrow from her past, Rocky is also dealing with the very in-the-moment reality and confusion of menopause, and coming to terms with what she calls a life of \u201ctotal reproductive mayhem.\u201d There are mood swings and hot flashes, but Newman\u2019s rendering of menopause is more nuanced and personal \u2014 and sometimes even hilarious. Like this description of forgetfulness:<\/p>\n Right?!?? Congratulations on all the rave reviews<\/a>, Catherine! We just love your book<\/a>.<\/p>\n P.S. Catherine\u2019s joyful house tour<\/a> and a darkly funny book we can\u2019t stop thinking about<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cupofjo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/IMG_1762-scaled.jpeg\")
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