Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
PRODUCT
Sandwich: A Novel
Sale!
Product Description:
Price:
Original price was: $26.99.$13.99Current price is: $13.99.
Detailed description:
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Sandwich is joy in book form. I laughed continuously, except for the parts that made me cry. Catherine Newman does a miraculous job reminding us of all the wonder there is to be found in life.”—Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake
“If you like my novels, you will love love love this . . . . I stand in awe, it’s just perfect.”—Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Swan Song
From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.
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.
Read more
Product group:
Categories: Business & Money
Product name:
Sandwich: A Novel
Price:
Original price was: $26.99.$13.99Current price is: $13.99.
Lola Close –
I read the book in one sitting – I was really pulled into the characters and the plot – as one writer to the NYT Book Review emphasized, the title refers to (i) Sandwich, MA, the setting of the book; (ii) the “sandwich” where some older folks fall, between kids and parents and lots of modern-day responsibilities (as well as hopes and dreams); and (iii) the sandwiches the author is always making for the said kids and parents.
I know so many people who have read it and been really moved by it. Although many of the conversations in the story are really challenging ones for the characters, they also feel completely realistic. The main surprise of the book is something I couldn’t have possibly imagined!
Bookstore West Portal here in SF has sold so many copies as they just got in a new, bigger order – see the pic! As an experiment last weekend, my kids and I visited multiple other bookshops in the Bay Area (so fun!) – one of the questions we asked was whether they had Sandwich, and it was really something to see how many bookstores were sold out and had it on order!
This is a book that will be handed around and around and around … although it’s hard to find available in libraries right now, put your name on the list or better yet buy several copies for friends from your local independent bookstore! Friends receiving it from you will be very grateful.
GLI –
This is a perfect book. The characters are so real, the voices so vivid and the pace so beautifully realised that you are right there with them from the first paragraph. This is incredibly funny and also heartbreakingly sad. Newman knows how to manage your emotions with such skill and she understands that the big things happen alongside the small not one after the other. This is beautifully balanced and so smart. I didn’t want it to end. I laughed and I cried, properly.
vicki.reads.books –
Within the first three chapters I had burst into tears and roared with laughter.
The evocative cape and the time switching that captured how precious and fragile it all is.
Lola Close –
I just adore Catherine Newman’s writing. I even end up thinking in her voice, narrating my daily life to myself as if it’s one of her books, because her prose is just so natural and lovely.
This, her second novel, is even better than her first. It centres around one family’s week-long holiday in Cape Cod, with the menopausal protagonist Rachel (also known as Rocky) firmly ‘sandwiched’ between her ageing parents and her young adult children. It’s a simple yet powerful exploration of family, parenthood, marriage, love, loss, and the whole fleeting yet blinding beauty of life.
There are many quotes that have stuck with me, but this one sums up the book: ‘Life is a seesaw, and I am standing dead center, still and balanced: living kids on one side, living parents on the other. Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don’t move a muscle, I think. But I will, of course. You have to.’ What an achingly bittersweet paragraph.
This book also made me laugh a surprising amount. Some of the characters are very funny, and the banter between the cast made me want to climb inside their cottage with them to join in their holiday. They will all stay with me for a long time.
‘Sandwich’ will definitely be in my top reads of 2024. My only criticism is that it’s quite short and I didn’t want it to end so soon.
carilynp –
I want to read everything she writes. She gets us. There is a nuance to these characters, a depth of emotion so unbelievably real, you can see yourself, you’ll nod your head, laugh along, feel the warmth and intimacy as if you’re a member of the family. A mother looking longingly at her grown children, still hanging on their every word, trying to speak their slang, she wants to hug them until they beg to be let go or when she knows she’s annoying them so much yet she can’t stop herself and being smack in the middle of the ridiculously unfair mind and body-altering menopausal symptoms, she can’t help but look back on events that altered her, reflect on her marriage, and other relationships right under her nose, and wonder.
It’s Rocky’s favorite week of the year. She loves every minute of these precious days she gets to spend with her husband, son, daughter, and elderly parents in their tiny rental cottage on Cape Cod. The one they’ve been coming back to year after year. Easygoing Nick, Jamie, who loves to cook, brought his sweet and adoring girlfriend Maya, whom the family loves, chatty, opinionated Willa cringes when Rocky makes inappropriate comments, asks invasive questions but loves her, nonetheless. Secrets are revealed that change the trajectory of how Rocky looks at the past and thinks about the future. It’s board games, conversations with their cat, lazy days at the beach, counting the minutes until they can get to the clam shack.
Just wait for the custom sandwich orders. While they give the book its title, a sandwich here is a metaphor for a place in time, which Rocky marks by telling us how old her kids were at key moments, rather than how old she was. Holding on to her kids as babies, when they depended on her, now the letting go, her nest is empty, a new phase has begun, menopause has kicked in, her parents are aging. Her time was not her own though every moment with her precious family brings her joy, she needs to process what she’s going through. Reminiscent of Nora Ephron, who used the planning, preparation and enjoyment of food to show pleasure and love, Newman adeptly brings us to the table with exquisite yet simple summer meals of lobster, corn on the cob, tomato salad, and what’s in between those made-to-order sandwiches. Now, that’s love. And drama.
JessieBookLover –
This is the first book I’ve read by Catherine Newman. She is truly a gifted writer. Unfortunately she has decided to write about one of the most obnoxious families I’ve ever met in a novel. Every female character, except for grandma, is pretentious, clueless, immature, and in need of therapy. The storyline involves the absolute, all-consuming passion the main character has for being pregnant and being a mother (obsessed with her “perfect” children) for instance when she talked about them, saying “I ached with love…and I felt like a gaping wound. If I could have stuffed the children into it, I would have. Into me. To fill the hole. To keep them safe. To keep them,” while also being completely cavalier about abortion. One character says: “I got pregnant in high school. Having an abortion was a super easy decision then. I got it done during a free period between chem and Spanish.” She laughs. “Those were the days!” I am a liberal, a feminist, and I fully believe in women’s reproductive rights and the right to choose but this is obnoxious. I find it difficult to care for characters who speak this way. Newman does write the relationship between the main character and her elderly parents in a very touching and real way. And she can be very funny, but so many times, I just wanted to throw the book across the room. Oh well…not for everyone.
Bluebirdkisses –
Reading this was painful, I had to force myself to finish. Mostly a monologue about one woman’s struggle with her feminine body; abortion, depression, menopause, etc. There really is no generational sandwich, other than the one she creates in her head. Her children are of age and live independently, her parents are elderly but live independently. Her husband should be given a hero award for sticking with her. I can think of nothing positive to say about this book other than I finished it.
Hands On Equine –
I tore through We All Want Impossible Things and was really looking forward to Sandwich. It was well written and a compelling story. But it really seems like it was taken from the template of the previous novel: Jewish family, grandmother is British, protagonist/narrator is a writer, two kids and the youngest is a gay female, the New York/Massachusetts connections…It almost felt like I was reading a sequel to WAWIT. I am surprised the publisher didn’t want something more unique. Or maybe they felt like they had latched onto a successful formula and wanted to repeat it??? Very good but not great. And I think if you’re going to read one Newman book, WAWIT is the one to choose.
salbra –
I was really excited to get this book after so many good reviews, but it’s horrendous. The writing is jumbled and at times, rambling and incoherent. The characters are barely developed, and at best I’d describe them as annoying. It feels like the author just threw thought diarrhea out onto page after page, just to slap together a book and call it done. It’s incredibly painful to read, there are better fun summer reads out there. This is the worse book I’ve read this year, possibly ever.