Sandwich

by Catherine Newman ★★☆☆☆

There's a recent movement in the world of book discussion to replace the "DNF" ("Did Not Finish") moniker with "NFM" ("Not For Me"). Perhaps never in the last year was "NFM" more applicable than with Catherine Newman's Sandwich. The novel is narrated by Rachel (aka "Rocky"), a menopausal mother on vacation for the 20th straight summer with her family in the Cape Code beach town of Sandwich. Rocky is awash in emotion for the week—she has her kids with her (they are in their twenties), her parents are visiting later in the week, and the town holds so many memories for her, both good and tragic. Those emotions play out in regular schizophrenic bursts over the short 250-odd pages of this tome. The first words of Chapter 1 are "'Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!' I'm laughing. I'm screaming and also crying." You get the picture.

Like many mothers Rocky's heart bursts with love for her children, and even though they're grown, she can't help but reflect on times when they weren't. About her youngest daughter Willa, Rocky says, "I'm so in love with her that if we were marsupials, I'd be stuffing her grown self back into my pouch." Her nest is empty, and she feels it, and that sudden emptiness of purpose has her emotionally all over the place. Rocky is often is found in witty banter with her children, particularly Willa, but balances the buoyancy of those conversations with occasional anger at her husband Nick for whatever perceived transgression he has committed. There is also past trauma that is alluded to (and eventually revealed) that, along with other things, shifts Rocky's mood to sadness when she least expects it.

Oh, and let's not forget the most common topic of Rocky's first person narration: menopause! I'll give you an extended excerpt to get a sense of the tone and wry humor of the narrator:

"Menopause feels like a slow leak: thoughts leaking out of your head; flesh leaking out of your skin; fluid leaking out of your joints. You need a lube job, is how you feel. Bodywork. Whatever you need, it sounds like a mechanic might be required, since something is seriously amiss with your head gasket.

You finally understand the word crepey as it applies to skin—although you could actually apply this word to your ass as well, less in the crepe-paper sense than in the flat-pancake one. Activities that might injure you include ping-pong, napping, and opening a tub of Greek yogurt. Your hairline is receding in such a way that, in certain cropped photographs, you look like somebody's cute, balding uncle. You eat pepperoni pizza and, half an hour later, put a hand to your chest, grimacing like a person in an Alka-Seltzer commercial. You set a timer so you'll remember to take your proton pump inhibitor, and when it goes off your husband says, 'It's reflux o'clock somewhere!' You have under-eye bags. Jowls. I Feel Bad About My Neck makes total sense as a book title. You reflect on old TV commercials with new understanding: a crocodile slithering around in need of Lubriderm! Same! All the horrors that crept past without you ever looking up from your youth to take note of what they even were: They've circled back for you."

There's more, but you get the picture.

There's also plenty of vagina-in-menopause chatter, whether it's about vaginal perspiration ("Like the fact that your vagina sweats in the night. It perspires! This same vagina that so stubbornly refuses to produce any other type of moisture...") or vaginal atrophy ("'Atrophy?' I said. 'Like, it just withers away? Grim.'"). And in case the compendium of topics so far still have you going, "okay, I might be into it", note that abortion makes a prominent appearance, and just for good measure Newman throws in a good amount of Holocaust talk as well.

I suspect that there is a certain demographic—specifically menopausal mothers—who completely relate to the honesty of the novel and the narrator while also finding Rocky hilarious. Anecdotally, this also feels like the largest demographic of readers we have in the U.S. (apparently that's not 100% true -- check out the stats here if you're interested), which makes it a smart choice for a novel's subject matter. But for most outside that demographic, I think Sandwich will be a challenge. While I clearly have some favorite genres, I take some measure of pride at choosing to read several different types of books, and I do so with an open mind. There are parts of me that can appreciate the writing and forthrightness of Sandwich, especially because so much of it feels like Newman has written from her own soul and life experiences. The challenges of menopause and empty-nest motherhood are simply not topics that I'm discussing with anyone in my daily life, and so I can appreciate having access to that point of view, even if reading about them wasn't especially enjoyable.

I tried to like it, and I finished it, but this one was clearly NFM.