She Treads Softly: Sandwich

Saturday, June 1, 2024

Sandwich

Sandwich by Catherine Newman
6/18/24; 240 pages
HarperCollins

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is an emotional drama that spends one week in the life of a family on their annual summer vacation at Cape Cod. It is recommended.

Nick and Rocky (Rachel) and their two grown children, Jamie and Willa, always spend one week a summer at the same cottage. Maya, Jamie's girlfriend has joined them this year and Rocky's parents will also be stay with them for a few days. Rocky is menopausal, experiencing hot flashes, angry, and emotional in contrast to Nick, who is easygoing. Rocky narrates the novel which is in part details of what they will eat, comic episodes, reminiscing on past events and heartbreaking secrets, and her menopausal hot flashes and anger. She not only makes plenty of sandwiches for the family to take to the beach, she is now part of the sandwich generation between her aging parents and adult children.

The quality of the writing is good and includes details that create a picture of the setting. The narrative follows the present day vacation with alternating chapters reflecting back on highly emotional events in the past. The state of Rocky's emotions, which are rocky indeed, are also descriptively presented along with her relationship and interaction with her family. At times, however, the interaction between family members was entertaining as written, but seemed unbelievable and unrealistic.

Rocky is a character that I struggled with liking or even relating to on some level, which is essential to this novel because she is the narrator. The constant mention of hot flashes and menopause began to annoy me. She feels over-the-top emotions and anxiety seemingly all the time while being very much self-focused. Some of her thoughts and actions just struck me as off and unrealistic. I should be the target audience for this novel but it put me off more than once. Thanks to HarperCollins for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.