Sandwich by Catherine Newman
For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.
This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.
It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.
Review: Rachel (known as Rocky by those closest to her) is fifty-four years old. For two decades, she has looked forward to her family's yearly pilgrimage to Cape Cod. Their rambling and run-down rental is filled with memories of her children as young babies and children, sunny days, and great seaside meals. Now, her children are mostly grown, and her parents are aging - leaving Rocky sandwiched firmly in the middle. Rocky is consumed by the way her life and body is changing, all the way reminiscing on the way things used to be.
I really enjoyed this exploration of life as an older woman and one that is a daughter to aging parents. It feels real and relatable, as Rocky navigates her body getting older and more fallible and her children becoming adults. Rocky does seem almost consumed with thinking about her aging body - the way it works, the way it functions, how it served her in the past, the way it operates sexually (or fails her sexually). While it felt heavy handed at times, I do think living in a female body means being very preoccupied with the physical self.
I really liked the multiple instances of word play in this book. At one point one of the characters thinks "meet cute" is actually spelled "meat cute." Rocky misreads a pamphlet from her doctor as "fecal matter" when it actually says, "fetal matter." And her father tries to tell her about a friend who has been diagnosed with what he says is "roam" disease. Or maybe it's "Roan Disease." They finally determine he is trying to "Crohn's Disease." Likewise, the title itself is a play on multiple elements of the book. Rocky is a sandwich generation, caught between her elderly parents and nearly grown children. But more literally, there is a lot of talk about her preparation of sandwiches to take down to the shore, the ingredients they need to purchase, what type and in what way different characters like their sandwiches prepared. It feels very domestic and also a preoccupation that a doting mother would very much have. Rocky loves her family well through acts of care and service.
I love that Rocky is fully supportive of her gay daughter and very open to adjusting her language or attitude to be accepting and not pass judgement. But at times, her daughter's incessant correcting of her every word felt a bit heavy handed. The book very much wants you to know that abortion is a woman's right and ok, but Rocky wants you to know that it is still a very personal choice. This is a book that is very preoccupied with the female body in the sense of its fertility and then the loss of that as it ages, but the constant harping on and on about pro-choice, trans men's right to have pregnancies, etc. felt like too much and more like the author wanted to teach us a lesson rather than share a story.
Along the same lines, it made me sad how hard Rocky's family is on her! They are constantly berating her for saying the wrong thing, asking the wrong questions, or even being the type of person that others feel comfortable opening up to. I know that it is stereotypical for teenagers to roll their eyes at every move their parents make, but Rocky's children felt a bit old to hate on her every move. It made me feel bad for her. I also felt bad for Rocky's husband at times. He seems the last to know everything at every turn. Every marriage is different, but there's certainly does not seem close in the sense that they confide big secrets in each other.
This felt like a lovely slice of life novel. While ostensibly focusing on one week of vacation, it's about family and how it changes over time, aging, and motherhood. I enjoyed it.
Trigger warning for pregnancy lost and miscarriage.
Stars: 4
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