Wreck
From the New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and We All Want Impossible Things
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
The NEW YORK TIMES bestseller. A wonderful novel full of laughter and heart, about marriage, family and what happens when life doesn’t go as planned…
'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
'A gorgeously human, tender-hearted, and delightfully funny exploration of the anxieties that beset all of us, and the loving relationships and irrepressible joy that gets us through' NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS, author of Fundamentally
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Rachel (Rocky) is seemingly living her best life as the irreverent, funny beating heart of her family. Her ageing father is his unique, adorable self; daughter Willa is prone to bouts of existential angst whilst berating the fact that her mother has zero filter; husband Nick is steady, logical, sometimes infuriating.
They are messy, they are flawed, they are completely, ridiculously normal.
And like most normal people, Rocky worries about what might happen next. So when a former classmate of her son Jamie dies in a seemingly random accident, Rocky becomes obsessed.
For if accidents can happen – and they do – is it truly safe to love anyone?
Fresh, honest, laugh out loud funny and genuinely relatable, WRECK follows Rocky and her family through one rollercoaster year as they negotiate the unpredictable and beautiful messiness of life.
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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' ? ? ? ? ?
'Feels like meeting up with old friends' ? ? ? ? ?
'It’s like Catherine Newman knows exactly how I feel' ? ? ? ? ?
'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' ? ? ? ? ?
Reviews say:
'Hugely enjoyable, absolutely real and thoughtful...Newman has an Ephron-esque gift for blending the sharp and the sad and an ability to let us love her creations.’ Observer
'Darkly funny, achingly emotional' Woman & Home
‘Insightful and totally relatable’ Good Housekeeping
‘The new queen of the bittersweet novel’ Independent
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.
Customer Reviews
Underwhelmed
Thought it was going to be good but sadly not.