Sandwich by Catherine Newman review

Midlife loss and anxiety are keenly felt on a family holiday, in this brilliant follow-up to We All Want Impossible Things

‘You’re supposed to retrace your steps when you lose something, but none of my losses are like that. Where would I look for them? And what would I do if I found them?” wonders the narrator of Sandwich, the follow-up to memoirist and journalist Catherine Newman’s critically acclaimed and bestselling adult debut novel We All Want Impossible Things.

Returning to the writing stage after a commercial success is no mean feat, and it’s understandable that Newman has chosen to explore similar themes in each story. Both novels deal with loss. But while Impossible Things explores the very tangible loss of a terminally ill friend, the losses found in Sandwich are, at least superficially, much more subtle.