There’s a particular quality to summer’s end in New England that feels like a held breath — the sun shines differently through the beach grass, the air brings hints of fall’s arrival, and even the happiest of beach days suggest the season’s inevitable farewell.
Catherine Newman’s “Sandwich” arrives like a perfectly-timed nor’easter at this transitional time, unexpected in its intensity, difficult to ignore, and leaving readers fundamentally changed in its wake.
Set against the backdrop of a family vacation on Cape Cod, this novel captures something ineffable about those final, precious weeks, when the salt air mingles with the creeping awareness that all good things must come to an end.
The story follows Rocky (Rachel), a fifty-year-old mother caught in the exhausting space between caring for her aging parents, Mort and Alice, and launching her children, Jamie and Willa, into adulthood. Newman has chosen her setting with surgical precision — a rented beach house becomes both a sanctuary and a pressure cooker, where three generations collide in the kind of intimate dysfunction only family vacations can produce. The Cape Cod coastline, with its weathered shingles and intermittent fog, mirrors Rocky’s sense of being worn by time and tide.
What makes “Sandwich” remarkable is Newman’s ability to glean meaning from the mundane choreography of summer rituals. The endless preparation of meals, the negotiation of bedrooms and bathrooms, the delicate dance of keeping everyone happy while slowly losing herself, somehow becomes the stuff of literature. Newman’s prose ebbs and flows like the waves against the rocks: relentless, mesmerizing, and occasionally violent in its honesty.
* ‘Between the Lines’ is a new monthly book review column from freelance reporter Stephanie Bernaba. For the full story, pick up a copy of this week's Independent on newsstands now or purchase a subscription to our E-Edition by clicking here.