Book Review: Sandwich

Sandwich
By Catherine Newman
Review by Harriet

Rocky, her husband, their adult children and her parents have come together for their annual summer vacation, and find themselves navigating a disorientating familial juncture, when dynamics between parents and their adult children are shifting and the weight of responsibility and care starts flowing both ways.

But what a treat to spend a week with them, and the comforting routines and intoxicating sensations that shape their summers; you can feel the tickle of sand-encrusted cold drinks, and the softness of a toddler’s pudgy arms, and savour the making, and beach-side devouring, of the sandwiches – one of several sublime passages on food.

Interactions and revelations are inevitably heightened by the ritual of the gathering, and the past that it summons, and Rocky, observing with compassion and sparkling humour at the centre of it all, feels the echoes of secrets, loss and bodily reckonings most keenly. In less deft hands, some of the heavier aspects of parenthood, marriage and ageing could overwhelm this slim novel, but Newman takes care to keep joy close by, capturing and uplifting the myriad tiny, hilarious, messy and achingly tender moments of everyday life.

Reading this at the tail-end of winter only served to sharpen the vitality and poignancy of this generous, moving and exquisitely sensory novel. For fans of Meg Mason, Katherine Heiny and Noelle McCarthy’s Grand.