Wreck
The moving, funny, relatable NYT bestseller from the author of SANDWICH
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- 12,99 €
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- 12,99 €
Publisher Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ABOUT WHAT IT IS TO BE BEAUTIFULLY, MESSILY HUMAN
'The kind of book that pulls up a chair, pours the wine, and dives deep... like spending hours with the friend who sees your mess and loves you more for it.' ALISON ESPACH, author of The Wedding People
'I LOVE her work... the antidote to these times' MARIAN KEYES
'Darkly funny, achingly emotional' Woman & Home
'Infectiously funny' RACHEL JOYCE, author of The Homemade God
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Rocky, Nick, Willa and Jamie. A normal loving, anxious, messy, relatable, family.
Rocky has her own her way of processing disasters: 1. This could happen to us. 2. This couldn’t happen to us. And then there’s a secret third column: ‘This could happen to us unless I am very careful/ superstitious/ grateful…’
So when a former classmate of Jamie’s dies in a seemingly random accident, Rocky becomes obsessed. She's also developed a niggling medical condition that won't go away. On the surface, she is still living her best life as the irreverent, funny beating heart of her family. Her father is his unique, adorable self; Willa is prone to bouts of existential angst whilst berating the fact that her mother has zero filter; Nick is steady, logical, sometimes infuriating.
But if accidents can happen – and they do – is it safe to love anyone?
Laugh out loud funny and deeply emotional, WRECK follows Rocky and her family through one rollercoaster year as they share the unpredictable, beautiful messiness of life.
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'Hugely enjoyable, absolutely real and thoughtful...Newman has an Ephon-esque gift for blending the sharp and the sad and an ability to let us love her creations.’ Observer
‘The new queen of the bittersweet novel’ Independent
‘Insightful and totally relatable’ Good Housekeeping
‘I’m in awe of Newman’s talent for finding humour in life’s disasters and indignities. Seriously funny’ Saga
Readers say:
'Wreck feels like Newman was writing directly to me. And what's so impressive is, I think many, many, many readers will feel like it was just for them too.'
'I laughed so hard...I cried, I felt it all so deeply, and it felt so deeply'
'Feels like meeting up with old friends'
'I feel seen every time I read [Catherine Newman's] words'
'There is just some kind of magic in Catherine Newman’s writing that makes me want to dog-ear every page'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The appealing if underdeveloped sequel to Newman's 2024 novel Sandwich follows 50-something writer Rocky through another series of midlife dilemmas. Rocky is at home in Massachusetts with her husband, Nick, and their college-grad daughter, Willa, when they read in the newspaper that an old high school friend of their son, Jamie, has been killed by a freight train at a railroad crossing. Rocky feels awful, especially after learning that the wreck might have been due to the railroad's outdated safety equipment. The episode distracts her from the article she's supposed to be writing about spatchcocking poultry, as do the inconclusive results of tests her dermatologist had her take to determine the cause of her mysterious rash, which continues to spread. Her anxiety spikes even more when she learns that the railroad is a client of the management consulting firm that Jamie works for in New York City. The plot is pretty threadbare and Newman doesn't go very far with the overarching mortality theme, but she nimbly leavens the heavy material with Rocky's quirky humor, as when she calls the fussy Willa her "princess angel baby" or struggles to fix a ceiling fan ("It's not out of the question that I'll Godzilla the entire fan out of the ceiling and throw it to the floor, screaming"). The author's fans won't be disappointed.
