BookLife Review by Carol O’Day: Sandwich (Catherine Newman, author)
Contemporary fiction, Cape Cod, midlife, family secrets, sandwich generation, parent of adult children, miscarriage, termination of pregnancy, LGBTQ+ character, family discord, aging parents
Catherine Newman digs deeply into the mire of midlife in Sandwich, a novel set on Cape Cod when a family with adult children and aging grandparents come together for an annual vacation week in a rented cottage. Sandwich probes the pain of secrets and regret, the consequences of choice, and the profound ache of motherhood triggered by letting go of beloved children as they build their own lives. It is tender and funny, uncomfortable and thought-provoking. It tackles the extremely difficult and profoundly personal decisions surrounding reproductive rights and the decision to terminate a pregnancy as well as the exquisite and particular pain of miscarriage.
Rachel (“Rocky”) and Nick embark with gleeful anticipation on their annual trip to Cape Cod where they will host their adult children, Willa and Jamie, Jamie’s long-time girlfriend and PhD candidate, Maya, in a cozy, beloved repeat cottage rental. Rocky’s aging parents, Mort and Alice, will join them for two nights mid-week. Rocky is in the throes of menopause, with attendant hot flashes, emotional lability and fits of rage. Nick is even-keeled, if emotionally subdued. Jamie and Maya are deeply in love, and Willa is a young, gay woman with high social emotional intelligence and maturity, deeply attuned to her mother.
Newman creates a strong sense of place, with sandy beaches, quirky trams and parking lots, pull out sofas and open sleeping lofts, a single temperamental toilet, rainy game days and library sales, picnic lunches with sandwiches made after breakfast, lobster and clam dinners and swims in a pond at the cottage. The reader feels snuggled into the family beehive of the cottage, one of many happily buzzing around Rocky, the queen bee.
There are secrets. Rocky has held one for two decades, and Maya shares one early in the week. Both involve pregnancy and a woman’s right to choose. Rocky also experienced a miscarriage after her first two children were born. Nick knows about the miscarriage. She has not shared her other secret–that she terminated another pregnancy and allowed him to believe it was a miscarriage.
Rocky’s motherhood is the core of her life, the core of her identity, an abiding mother-bear love, and the source of her sorrow, both in the letting go of her treasured two children as they launch into adulthood, and the missed opportunity of the children she lost. Menopause both triggers and seems to account for her rage, but as the novel unfolds we understand that it is really self-directed regret and shame, and resentment of her husband, who was spared both the pain of miscarriage and the weight of the termination, and the traumas that accompany motherhood even the parts unassociated with the end of a pregnancy in any of its iterations. Rocky perceives that Nick experienced a more eased version of parenthood. She believes she bore all of the difficulties. Over the course of the novel, and when she discloses to him her long held secret, the picture grows more complicated. Nick reminds her that someone had to be available in the storm to steer the ship, and that keeping a secret about what would have been his child too was a profound breach of marital trust.
Swirling in the wings are the secondary story lines around Jamie and Maya and Alice and Mort. During the course of the week, Rocky learns that Mort and Alice have kept secrets from her as well, one regarding Mort’s family history and another involving Alice’s health. On yet a third track, early in the week, Maya shares her secret with Rocky, before she shares it with Jamie. Willa is the bellwether, the self-realized, sentient soul who reads the emotional barometer and navigates a course of calm and openness.
At a quick 226 pages, Sandwich is a satisfying read for those who enjoy a quirky and meaningful, sometimes funny, family drama. The primary character, Rocky, is fully conceived and richly drawn. Willa, too, shines and her personhood jumps from the page.. The other characters in the drama are less dimensional and sometimes appear as foils or props to the central drama. The compact timeline of the story serve as the catalyst for action, the quick passing of the vacation week compelling the action and disclosures at a fast pace that keeps the story moving and fresh. The pace reminds the reader of that time is of the essence in the all-too-rapid ticking of the clocks that are our lives. We each have this one precious life and how we spend our days and our emotional currency and with whom we invest our time and our love matters, deeply.
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