Book Review: Sandwich by Catherine Newman
June 27, 2025
This book is an ode to motherhood, to womanhood, to nostalgia, to aging, to relationships and the way they change, to love and sex, to summer, and to the moments that make us up. I loved this book, I am going to tell you right off the bat, and I think everyone needs to read it who is a women and who loves a woman. I feel like I understand my mother so much better, and understand the woman that I will grow into as I transition into motherhood and deeper adulthood.
We follow the story of Rachel, Rocky, throughout the week that her family spends in Cape Cod. Every summer, she and her family pack their lives up, and spend a week at a rickety old cabin that is barely large enough for all of them, now that her children are adults. Her youngest, Willa, is 20 and a junior in college, and her oldest, Jamie, is 25 ( if I am remembering correctly ) and has brought his beautiful girlfriend, Maya, with them this summer. Throughout the book Rocky reflects on the many joys, and many sorrows, of motherhood. She reflects on watching her beautiful children grow up and the memories that they had made over the years at this very house, on this very beach. She reflects on the babies she lost and the marriage, with her ridiculously handsome husband Nick, that ebed and flowed through those loses. She reflects on the body that she used to have and the menopause that is racking its way through her. She is angry and confused as to why there is so little information available to her about how much she is changing. Brutally aware of all of the changes, this summer feels like a sort of turning point in her life, filled with discovery of self and how she has become who she has become.
This book made me appreciate traditions, transitions, and how fast time moves. Again, I adored this book, and suggest it to anyone who liked Tom Lake, or has a mother or woman that they love in their life. I will warn you, there is a lot of talk of loss of unborn babies, and there is discussion of abortions as well. If you are not at a place that you feel comfortable reading about either, please save this book for another time.
