Catherine Newman’s previous novel, SANDWICH, told the winsome tale of a family vacationing on Cape Cod. She got so attached to Rocky and her loved ones that she continues their story in a complex narrative about age, loss, grief, responsibility and accountability. 

Rocky has just lost her beloved mom, and her nostalgia is at an all-time high. As she attends to the needs of her chill husband, Nick; her post-collegiate daughter, Willa; her son, Jamie, who has made a big corporate move to New York City; and her widowed father, Mort, Rocky has a mysterious run-in with a painful illness that is difficult to determine. WRECK is the story of a confluence of life’s hardest and happiest ventures and how one menopausal woman tries to find her way through it all.

"Rocky is a perfect example of a thinking American right now... Ultimately, WRECK is a very different book from SANDWICH, but it has a similar philosophy --- embrace the mess because someday it won’t be there and you’ll miss it."

In their Western Massachusetts home, not many things happen that trickle their way into every tier of Rocky’s family. However, one night, when a local boy is killed by a train that gives no warning at an intersection with a town road, Rocky becomes obsessed with the details of his death. As her health takes a more uncertain turn, she gets increasingly involved in the aftermath of the accident. She learns more about the young man who grew up with her kids, his mother’s desperate pain, and how a member of her family becomes a possible complication when it comes to the train company getting away with what could be construed as murder.

Rocky is a perfect example of a thinking American right now --- anxious, searching, figuring out that not everyone is who they seem to be on the outside. Her investigation both aids and abets her grief. The image of her mother and how she would handle things comes back to haunt her as she tries to stay calm and carry on.

I get Rocky. The hardest thing as a parent is to know that at some point there are energies in the world you cannot control, and you realize your babies are going to come into contact with people who don’t care as much about them as you do. Due to what is misplaced survivor’s guilt, Rocky attempts to discover how better to protect her children, worried that her mystery illness could be fatal, and there are plans she needs to make just in case that is true. 

Rocky is a symbol for these uncertain and terrifying times. She takes control and gives some up as she receives more information about all the different events and feelings she wasn’t aware that others have been experiencing. As she listens more deeply to herself, she realizes that she must put on her oxygen mask first before she can help her dad, her kids, her husband or her friends. This sense of what real authenticity and self-knowledge is changes Rocky forever.

Catherine Newman has a tendency to let her characters mull over the same thing for a long time before turning to something else to consider. However, as the novel goes on, I found that I appreciated those pauses, such as they were, before more anxious and emotional moments moved the story forward. Ultimately, WRECK is a very different book from SANDWICH, but it has a similar philosophy --- embrace the mess because someday it won’t be there and you’ll miss it. Perhaps this is an easy roundup of complicated interactions, but it’s true, and Newman tugs at our hearts until we genuinely believe the same in our souls.