Sandwich: A Novel
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
“A total delight.”—Kate Christensen
From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things and Wreck, 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 firmly in the sandwich generation—caught 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 in this moving work of family life fiction: 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.
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Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars 3,310
4.2 out of 5 stars 10,400
Price
$13.43$13.43 $9.94$9.94
Publisher : Harper Perennial
Publication date : May 27, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 006334517X
ISBN-13 : 978-0063345171
Item Weight : 6.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches
Part of series : Sandwich
Best Sellers Rank: #3,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #37 in Humorous Fiction #50 in Women’s Domestic Life Fiction #234 in Literary Fiction (Books)
Customer Reviews: 3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars (37,622) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Original price was: $18.99.$8.97Current price is: $8.97.
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
“A total delight.”—Kate Christensen
From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things and Wreck, 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 firmly in the sandwich generation—caught 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 in this moving work of family life fiction: 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.
From the Publisher
Add to Cart
Add to Cart
Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars 3,310
4.2 out of 5 stars 10,400
Price
$13.43$13.43 $9.94$9.94
Publisher : Harper Perennial
Publication date : May 27, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 006334517X
ISBN-13 : 978-0063345171
Item Weight : 6.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches
Part of series : Sandwich
Best Sellers Rank: #3,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #37 in Humorous Fiction #50 in Women’s Domestic Life Fiction #234 in Literary Fiction (Books)
Customer Reviews: 3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars (37,622) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Liz –
Swept up in this book!
I loved this book and read it in a day. Poignant, funny, honest. The writing flowed beautifully. This is the best kind of book because you are in the experience and it makes you think about life. I’m off to read more from Catherine Newman!
Susan Roberts –
Sandwich
I’ve read a lot of comments about this book on social media so I decided to order it from Amazon to find out what all the hype is about. It was an interesting read about a woman stuck between the generations — in the middle of her adult children and her aging parents – trying very hard to make everyone happy often trying too hard which makes her unhappy with her own life.For the past two decades, Rocky and her family have spent a week at Cape Cod during the summer. This year is no different – Rocky and her husband Nick, their son and his girlfriend and their daughter all crowd into a tiny rental to enjoy the week at the beach and reminisce on their past trips to the same house. The last two days of the week, Rocky’s aging parents come to the beach house. With three generations of the family all in one small house, she realizes how sandwiched she is between her almost adult children and her aging parents. Much of the story takes place in her mind as she complains about the changes that menopause is bringing to her body and the effect it is having on her mind. She’s proud of her children but misses them being small ad relaying on her to take care of all of their needs. She seems very ambivalent about her husband – it’s almost that she loves him but often times doesn’t like him much. She’s kept secrets from him for their entire marriage and feels justified in it. During this week at the beach, she realizes that its finally time to share her secrets with him no matter what happens as a result.There is a character driven story so don’t expect a lot of action. It’s a look at the life of a family – parents, adult children and aging parents – during one week on their annual beach vacation. The characters are quirky and some of the family interplay is funny but overall, it’s a serious look at learning to accept the changes that occur as we age — whether we want them to or not.
Dools –
A good read.
The description of love that this mother has for her adult children is vividly displayed in the writing. You feel as if you are in the cottage with this family on their vacation and you would want to be a part of this loving and funny family. The descriptions of the Grandparents make you smile and miss your own Grandparents!
carilynp –
Touching, nostalgic, funny. I LOVE this book so hard!
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.
Susan –
Families, Ever Perfect, Ever Flawed, But Ever There
It took a while for me to jump into this book with both feet. I truly liked it. I liked it a lot. There was a lot of internal conversation among these characters that made the story both confusing and charming. It took me a long time to finish this book NOT the fault of the author but of my own crazy life. I think it is a tribute to Catherine Newman that I did keep reading it because it was so comfortable to sit down with. There was angst for sure, but nothing insurmountable. More like real life. A true slice of a family whose children are are rapidly growing into adulthood. It is an excellent read.
Tempe Lees –
I loved this beautifully written story about the simple complexities of women, families and getting through life. Engaging on so many levels.
Amazon Customer –
I absolutely loved We all want impossible things so have kind of being saving this one in the hope it was maybe as good. Having now got an proof copy of Wreck which comes after this book I decided now was the time to see if I would love this one as much as I did her first book.The answer is, I didn’t, I loved it more!“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.”― Catherine NewmanThis line absolutely got me. I had to go find my husband and read it to him. It felt so relfective of myself it made me feel very seen.The character in the book, Rocky, is slightly older than me but her situation, with parents and children and menopause just felt so bloody relatiable. I too find myself remanising about when they were young, looking back on those long summers together, the adventures we had, watching them swim and explore and trip and fall and making food and going to the beach. I felt it all and now, they are big and grown and mostly doing their own thing and that is a wonderful thing but also there is little tinge of loss. I think it is where my desire to be a Grandmother stems from. To just have another go at some of that stuff.I loved Rocky. I totally understood her, her fears and anxiety. Her feelings about her body and sex and desire. How mess it all was sometimes but how she worked so hard to keep all the wheels on the bus as best she could but also her love. She has so much love, for all the different parts of her family. She is a tenderhearted women. It all felt so relatable. I am Rocky, Rocky is me.Thank you Catherine Newman. Thank you!
Poliana Scarcella –
Livro gostoso de ler! Me identifiquei muito com a personagem.Super recomendo. Sobre envelhecer, ver os filhos crescendo e deixando o ninho
Hildegunst von Mythenmetz –
Was für ein schönes Buch! Wollte es erst weglegen, weil „nicht schon wieder ein Wechseljahrsroman“ aber dann war es ganz anders. Ein warmherziger Roman über Familie, Kinder, älter werden und überhaupt
Shannon Purdy –
As someone in the sandwich era, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters, the relationships, feelings, struggles are all relatable. I really enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it to anyone who is sandwiched between their children and parents, like me.