There were moments in Sandwich when I thought that the author, Catherine Newman, had direct access to my mind because the experiences of the main character, a woman named Rocky, were so similar to my own.

Rocky spends every summer in a shack at Sandwich, Cape Cod. I have spent every summer in a shack at McCrae, on the Mornington Peninsula.

We’ve been coming here so long that the experience is deeply layered…

Rocky has watched her children, now adults, love various but very particular things about their holidays over the years. I’ve done the same (for my kids: playgrounds were ranked in order of greatness, the Rosebud Carnival was a must-do, as was/is jumping off the Rye Pier).

This candy store! The kids used to vibrate with excitement if you even mentioned it. It’s almost painful, the way little children just trustingly hold out their hearts for you to look at – the way they haven’t learned yet how to conceal what matters to them, even if it’s just chewing gum or a plush dolphin or plastic binoculars.

Rocky notes the things that have become ‘tradition’ – mostly food associated, such as a lobster dinner the night her parents visit. Our ‘traditions’ are similar – for example, we always have fish and chips on the first and last night of our stay.

Rocky’s shack is home to artifacts that seem to find their way to holiday houses and never leave. Her description of sunscreen is taken directly from my own experience (except switch out the Bain de Soleil for Coppertone, and the squamous cell carcinomas for straight melanoma).

The same crumpled metal tube of Bain de Soleil, SPF 0 – oh, glorious orange gelée of my past! – which I will uncap later so as to breathe in the scent of my future squamous cell carcinomas.

Even the ‘complaints’ section of Rocky’s holiday is almost identical to ours. Rocky refers to it as the ‘catalogue of grievances’, whereas ours is simply called ‘holiday grievances’.

Rocky is riding the menopause roller coaster. Oh, hello…

You finally understand the word crepey as it applies to skin… Activities that might injure you include ping-pong, napping, and opening a tub of Greek yogurt… You eat pepperoni pizza and, a half hour later, put a hand to your chest, grimacing like a person in an Alka-Seltzer commercial… I Feel Bad About My Neck makes total sense as a book title.

So yes, there was much to delight in while I was reading Sandwich. But… but… there were also many aspects of this story that didn’t ring true. The dialogue with her children was weirdly over-familiar (lots of comments and thoughts about her children’s bodies!) but also lacking understanding about their day-to-day lives. There were multiple scenes where Rocky’s children ‘corrected’ her, and the wokeness was painfully spelled-out.

Equally, I did not believe for an instant that everyone got on so well for the whole holiday – I’m sorry, with seven adults in a two bedroom and one bathroom house, someone will lose their shit at some point.

Although it’s essentially a character-driven story, Newman includes individual plot lines relating to Rocky’s Jewish heritage; her mother’s deteriorating health; her son’s relationship; and her own fertility experience. It’s too much in what is a short novel and as a result, Rocky comes across as a fairly shallow person, skipping from one issue to the next.

Specifically, I find it difficult to believe that she’s reached 54 and has not reflected on (or revealed) her fertility journey until this particular summer holiday (especially as she has so much to say about reproductive rights). Was Newman aiming for a character that was in denial? Or even naive? Maybe, but to me Rocky read as someone who was completely self-absorbed and lacked any insight.

Lastly, the male characters in this story (there’s three) were all apparently easy-going and devoid of extreme emotions. Maybe they had to be in order to cope with Rocky’s self-centred and bratty behaviour?! Rocky observes that ‘…men have reason and math in place of where feelings would be…‘ – is this meant to be funny? If it is, Newman misses the mark, and stuff like this only served to make me grind my teeth even more when I got to the ‘woke’ bits.

2.5/5

But first: the epic making of sandwiches! I complain about this part of my vacation life, but I love it, and everybody knows this. I look for my favorite bowl – the one with the Scandinavian mushrooms printed around its enamel sides – and mix three cans of tuna with half a jar of mayo, heaps of celery, pickled pepperoncini peppers, and a splash of juice from the pepper jar.