A Woman Who Worries – a Lot!
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I loved Catherine Newman’s first book, We All Want Impossible Things. It was full of snappy dialog and wise comments about life as experienced by a woman. It was funny too, which was tricky since it was about a dear friend dying in hospice care. In the new book we have the same positive attributes while exploring – most of the time – much lighter topics.
Sandwich is about a woman name Rachel and nicknamed Rocky. She and her husband, Nick, are new empty nesters. Their son, Jamie, has finished college and is working at a start up in New York. Their daughter, Willa, is soon to be a senior at Barnard. As is family tradition, they are about to spend a week together on the beach at Cape Cod. Jamie has a long-time girlfriend named Maya who will also be with them. Part way through the week, Rocky’s parents will join them too.
As we move through the week of togetherness, we will get Rocky’s take on motherhood, marriage, the empty nest, menopause, and a little bit about aging parents thrown in for good measure.
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What drew me to the book was a review that included this perspective on Rocky’s part:
“When I heard stories about women driving themselves and their children off cliffs or into oncoming traffic, I thought ruinedly, Yeah. I get that. I wouldn’t have, but I understood why you might. I hope I wouldn’t have. I’m honestly not entirely sure.”
Not only did I understand Rocky’s sentiment, but I have uttered similar words myself. Like Rocky, I have always adored my (now adult) children. But the fact of the matter is that motherhood is completely wonderful, except when it isn’t.
To redeem myself and Rocky, she also utters these words, which are taken right out of MY mouth…when she looks at her kids, she thinks, “How are these adults my children? And why are they so beautiful?”
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Here are other Rocky-isms I loved:
- About her husband she says, he is “a beautiful man who understands between twenty and sixty-five percent of everything [I say].”
- About being fifty she says, “If menopause were an actual substance, it would be spraying from my eyeballs.”
- About her mother she says, “I have always envied my mom her loveliness. She has never seemed like a person who might axe down the kitchen door in lieu of making dinner again.”
And this quote is not funny, but very beautifully and painfully real.
- About her parents she sees them “laughing in their beach chairs, shrinking inside their clothes as the years pass. Grief bright in the periphery, like a light flashing just out of view.”
Great lines, right?
BUT, with less than a hundred pages left in the book, I wrote myself a note that said, Lots of snappy dialog and great understanding of all the hoods – mother, wife, daughter, woman – but where is this story going?
As it turns out, Rocky had so many thoughts – and so many worries – about so many topics, that I missed a very serious part of the plot until she knocked me over the head with it in those last hundred pages.
So yes, Catherine Newman went somewhere important in this book! She also kept me laughing every step of the way.
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Click here to learn more about Sandwich on Amazon.
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