Sandwich

I wanted to read Catherine Newman’s new novel Sandwich as soon as I heard about it. I’ve been a fan of her writing since the early  Bringing Up Ben blog.

I kind of hate when authors are conflated with their protagonists, but…  Sandwich is about a woman, Rocky, who’s Newman’s age, with two children the ages and genders of her real-life children, with some of the traits they have on her blogs, and a caring but under-emotional husband, just the way she describes her real-life husband, Michael.  It was strange to me to read about the grown-up Ben and Birdy. Partly because I remember Waiting for Birdy, and if baby Birdy is now a young adult, that means that time is passing for me, too. Catherine Newman’s blog used to be called The Dalai Mama, which I remember being blocked in China, so I read it by VPN when I was in Yantai and Beijing, 2006-2008. I mean, that was only a couple years ago, right? RIGHT?

The feeling that Ben and Birdy were babies just a few months ago is one of the themes of this book. I liked this theme, with Newman’s eye for detail and humor in the every day. Rocky loves her kids in this no-boundaries, all-encompassing way. She loves her husband, her parents, her kids, family togetherness, etc., but she’s still filled with rage. Her rage was sometimes relatable,  and sometimes frustrating.  Stop doing the things are making you mad, Rocky! 

Sandwich was hard to read at times, because the whole family was constantly oversharing, constantly sexual, constantly in each other’s business, constantly messy, and I just wanted space. Newman captures the claustrophobia of a family vacation too well, and I began to want my own hotel room. She describes the steps of everyone getting ready for the beach day, and it’s too slow and accurate, I wanted to wave on my way out the door to the  the beach!  

Nothing much happens for 75% of the book, as they come and out of the beach house, and Rocky reminisces about their previous summers. I like this kind of slice-of-life novel, especially with a focus on family relationships and generations.  And then there’s a huge secret that Rocky’s been keeping from everyone in her life. You guys, I generally love a book in which nothing much happens but here, Newman is way too good at bringing family claustrophobia to life. Then there’s the bombshell secret that Rocky just decides to tell her daughter. This sort of made sense in the oversharing family, but was also a strange choice. Why don’t you know me? she screams at her husband in a thousand ways in this book, and presumably for years before. But instead of talking to him, she decides to confide in her daughter, who’s in the absolute throes of teenage insufferability. Her daughter just directly asks about pregnancy and abortions, pausing only to announce that straight sex is weird because it can make unplanned pregnancies, and to remind the reader that a lesbian could have a unplanned pregnancy when dating a transwoman. This felt heavy handed, both the reveal and the asides and the super-obvious eavesdropping. But after so many days of minutiae in the privacy-free beach house, I was happy the story was going somewhere. 

And then! After all the oversharing, it turns out that Rocky’s parents have strategically not mentioned certain things about their health and their family history! Is Rocky a boundary-free oversharer because her parents have kept their secrets? Or do they keep things private because not everything is for Rocky’s public discussion?  I was back to being intrigued by the family saga, and then I wanted a whole book exploring this.

In conclusion, I mostly liked Sandwich, but I would have flipping LOVED a personal essay or short story about the three generations in the beach house even more.