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.
Books to look forward to ... 