Sandwich

“In the passenger seat of one slightly rusting silver Subaru station wagon: a woman in her mid-fifties. She is halfway in age between her young adult children and her elderly parents.”

The novel’s title refers to the “sandwich” generation and represents Rocky’s experience of being “sandwiched” between her aging parents and her children as they enter adulthood. The way that family dynamics recalibrate and shift during this phase of life is one of the novel’s most important themes, and the author establishes its importance immediately during the novel’s Prologue.

“If menopause were an actual substance, it would be spraying from my eyeballs, searing the word ugh across Nick’s cute face.”

The novel depicts the experience of women as they age and enter perimenopause through the way that Rocky navigates this time of change. The author self-consciously brings attention to a phase of life during which many women report feeling “invisible” and uses Rocky’s characterization to raise awareness about the experience of perimenopause and, for some readers, to establish relatability.

“Maya, like Jamie and Willa and young people everywhere, is a perfect human specimen.”

Sandwich is particularly attuned to intergenerational differences, and Rocky often ruminates on the contrast between her own youth and that of her children. During this scene, she remarks on the beauty of her son’s girlfriend and her comfort with her body. Rocky wishes that fashion had been freer when she was a young woman, and her easy acceptance of clothing that could be termed risqué helps build her