Tag: Catherine Newman

Wreck by Catherine Newman (Literary Fiction)

If you liked Newman’s Sandwich (I loved it), you’ll like Wreck as well. The same intense (and ultra neurotic) narrator Rocky, her amiable (but richly written) husband Nick, son Jamie (now a New York City based management consultant who sheepishly admits he likes making money), and daughter Willa (vegetarian lesbian with heavy duty anxiety issues) — with the new addition of Rocky’s 92-year old father, cohabiting in the wake of his wife’s death the year before.

As with Sandwich, this book is deftly written and laugh-out-loud funny. Some of my favorite scenes include an array of bizarre cat behavior, taking her elderly father to a juice bar for his confusing introduction to “superfoods,” the kind of items being “gifted” on Buy Nothing, and joking with the phlebotomist while waiting for potentially terrifying results. Her incisive (and insightful) wit is applied equally to social commentary, family interactions, and her own “doomsday imagination” inner spiraling. Kind of a recombinant mix of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron.

The “plot” comprises two ongoing storylines wending their way through family scenes and discussions. Story line one weaves through Rocky’s enigmatic health condition — beginning as an innocent looking rash or two and developing into a confusing set of interrelated symptoms. Rocky navigates the utterly irrational medical system “aided” by her overactive imagination and internal doom scrolling. At the same time, an accidental train collision has claimed the life of a young man known tangentially to Rocky’s family. Rocky and her equally obsessive daughter can’t help but be tormented by the event when it appears that corporate malfeasance may have played a role. Worse still, it may be Jamie’s consulting company that did the risk assessment number crunching which could be blamed. This ethical dilemma interested me as Rocky was happy to lay the blame at the door of a faceless corporate entity, stereotypically blind to all but pure greedy profit, but when her affable and highly moral son was involved, she was willing to look further into the situation and admit to some nuance in blame and understanding.

Loved the dialog, the thickness of familial feeling, the ethical questions, and the exposed hilarity of the human condition. Newman is one of those writers who always finds the exact phrase needed to describe a hopelessly complicated set of feelings, intentions or reactions. There are only a few writers who can do that, and I love them.

Thank you to Harper and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 28th, 2025.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Literary Fiction — Humor)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5 Humor: 5++/5

Ok, this book is just flat out funny. I snorted, giggled, and guffawed my way through it with only occasional pauses. But while it gets top top grades for humor, it has plenty of depth, too. Ostensibly about a week at the beach with an extended (and all adult) family, it’s a study of functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) family dynamics. Many readers seem to want intense drama, with earth shattering impact, but I love these close looks at how real people work and learn and connect. The themes are family, love, and life with plenty of personality, philosophy, and interaction thrown in and a strong focus on parenting, pregnancy, and reproduction. Also the (new to me) phrase “anticipatory grief.” Wow — I should have learned that one a long time ago…

I loved the characters and the way they interacted. Our first person narrator is Rocky (Rachel) — a mother so full of emotion and worry and menopausal heat she is constantly threatening to (metaphorically) explode. I liked the way husband Nick — even as told through her eyes — is depicted so completely and not just a bit player in Rocky’s drama. Without giving anything away, I thought he was masterfully written. I loved the multifaceted views of all of the characters — both as themselves and also as they were in relationship with each other. I also appreciated the way Newman dealt with daughter Willa — the requisite lesbian through whom plenty of social commentary on LGBTQ+ issues was included in a nice relaxed, off key way that both made me laugh and made me think.

I also loved the dialog — it was written the way I wish people would speak — fast, humorous, and with a high signal to noise ratio. General banter and friendly family squabbling throughout but always overlaid on clear, honest, and trusting communication. I could be laughing at the (over-the-top-of the-top menopause complaints and then be tearing up at the essential humanity and love concisely tucked into an honest exchange. Kind of a combination of Nora Ephron (humor), Matthew Norman (human exchange), and Anne Lamott (parenting and reflection).

I will say that the inside of Rocky’s head is a fun, but very tiring place to be and I’m glad I don’t live there permanently.

Quotes:

“Ugh, my voice! You can actually hear the estrogen plummeting inside my larynx.”

“… I say quietly, but my veins are flooded with the lava that’s spewing our of my bad-mood volcano. If menopause were an actual substance, it would be spraying from my eyeballs, searing the word ugh across Nick’s cute face.”

“People who insist that you should be grateful instead of complaining? They maybe don’t understand how much gratitude one might feel about the opportunity to complain.”

“I’m always Sherlock Holmesing around them all with my emotional magnifying glass, trying to figure out if anybody has any actual feelings and what those might be.”

“Also he will get out the innocuous-sounding foam roller that is actually a complex pain device designed by people who hate everybody. I’ve seen enough videos of cats terrorized by cucumbers to know what my face looks like when I suddenly see the foam roller.”

“Nick’s curiosity about feelings and the people who have them is fleeting at best.”

“Forty percent of my waking thoughts were about the children dying — the other sixty about sleep. I was ashamed of this demented pie chart.”

“A conversation like this might be a wolf in clown’s clothing, and he knows it. My rage is like a pen leaking in his pocket, and before long there will be ink on his hands, his lips.”

“I mince down the spiral staircase in my memory-foam slippers, all of my joints clacking like the witch in a marionette performance of Hansel and Gretel.”

“All of the names of everything have oozed out and away from the drainage holes menopause has punched into my memory storage.”

“My ancient father actually swimming in the ocean feels like a bridge too far in terms of what I can handle fretting about.”

Thank you to Harper and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on June 18th, 2024.