I wasn’t able to plan a summer vacation this year, but at least I could daydream about one.
Catherine Newman’s “Sandwich” took me straight to Cape Cod — minus the traffic delays at the Bourne or Sagamore Bridge. The Cape is one of my favorite places to go to get away. In fact, I think it’s probably one of the very few places I’ve been to more than once. A Harwichport or Chatham girl myself, I knew I could count on Newman’s book to help me at least imagine another sun drenched week in the salt air.
Certainly Newman knows her way around the beach town vibe and renting a house on the Cape, which made for a very realistic setting in which readers get to spend a week with Rachel (“Rocky”); her husband Nick, adult kids Willa and Jamie; Jamie’s girlfriend Maya, and Rachel’s elderly parents.
It’s at that point you’ll need to suspend reality just a little bit to enjoy the novel for what it is — a slightly too-good-to-be-true version of a family transitioning into their own next phases of life.
Everyone is going to take something different away from Rachel and her myriad relationships with her husband, kids and parents. I would label myself about as liberal as they come, and even I had a hard time buying the straight up easy breezy manner in which she handles the societal/cultural/lifestyle challenges her kids throw at her while maintaining a healthy set of grievances toward the love of her life, who as best as I could tell, didn’t really deserve them. That’s not to say I would throw my hands up in the air after a chapter and say “Oh, COME ON!” … it just sometimes felt like certain narratives were forced and others came together way too easily. I’ll give you a small example of where I would differ from Rocky — there is no way in this universe I would casually be cool with my 20-year-old daughter telling me she’s planning to spend the night with the flirty clerk at the swimsuit shop, whom she didn’t know at all. Rocky, on the other hand, thinks this is great — more room in their rental for a night. Yeah, no.
There’s also a tremendous amount of ground being covered here — sexuality, abortion, the pull toward and push away from dreams of motherhood, marital truths and lies, parenting and also caring for parents — Rocky is in the throes of her sandwich years. I see what you did there, Ms. Newman.
And even if it does feel as if there’s some magical thinking going on, that’s OK. It’s Cape Cod. It’s summer. If you’ve been there and loved it, you know. What I’d give for a stroll down Chatham’s main drag, hopping into a saltwater taffy/gift shop, a wet towel hanging over a porch railing, an ice cold beer with my fish and chips. I’m going to have to put another week of this into vacation rotation.
An easy, enjoyable summer read. Just don’t try to overthink it. Enjoy the ride.
LitzyDitz 
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