One family, one year and a novel that reminds us what it means to be beautifully, messily human.
From the NYT bestselling author of WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS and SANDWICH.
'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, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People
'Gorgeously human, tender-hearted, and delightfully funny' Nussaibah Younis, bestselling author of Fundamentally
'A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.' Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
'Infectiously funny and surprisingly moving, Wreck reminds us that we are each, in our way, trying to make sense of the big things with some very small tools' Rachel Joyce, bestselling author of The Homemade God
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Rocky, Nick, Willa and Jamie. A normal loving, anxious, messy, unpredictable, 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 what happens when 'this could happen to us' turns into 'it really might be me'?
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. Even so, she is still living her best life as the irreverent, funny, unpredictably beating heart of her family. Her father is his unique, outspoken adorable self; her daughter Willa is prone to bouts of existential angst whilst berating the fact that her mother has zero filter; husband Nick is steady, logical, and sometimes infuriating.
But if accidents can happen - and they do - is it really 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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PRAISE FOR SANDWICH & WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS-
'Breezy New York Nora-Ephron-style wit meets hospice memoir to create something profoundly beautiful...comforting, so funny, moving but never mawkish and packed with all kinds of love. It's one of my favourite books ever' bestselling author, MARIAN KEYES
'One of the funniest books I've ever read' FEARNE COTTON, STYLIST
'I adored this book. Jubilant, devastating, tender, heartbreaking, I found myself both in tears and 'snorty-laughing'. A masterclass on friendship, family love, memory, and the messiness of life and love and dying. Pure genius' RACHEL JOYCE, author of the bestseller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
'Tragically funny, with moments of clarity and wisdom, Newman writes loss and laughter in equally brilliant amounts' BONNIE GARMUS, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
'Newman is truly a master of taking complex and chaotic human emotion and making sense of it ... wise and exquisitely written' GUARDIAN
'Sandwich is joy in book form. I laughed continuously, except for the parts that made me cry. Catherine Newman does a miraculous job reminding us of all the wonder there is to be found in life.' ANN PATCHETT, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake
About the Author
Catherine Newman is the New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and We All Want Impossible Things, which was also chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club. She is the author of the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, and the bestselling children’s book How to be a Person. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Parents magazine, and many other publications. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family.
Industry Reviews
Wreck is the kind of book that pulls up a chair, pours the wine, and dives deep—equal parts hilarious, sharp, and achingly sincere. It’s like spending hours with the friend who sees your mess and loves you more for it. I didn’t just read it—I felt known by it. A luminous, laugh-out-loud triumph by Newman.
— Alison Espach, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People
Endorsing a new Catherine Newman novel feels a bit like endorsing puppies or chocolate cake. It's a new Catherine Newman novel. Of course you want to read it. Wreck is a delight. What an absolute joy to be reunited with Rocky and her family, the characters we all fell in love with in Sandwich. Newman's prose is laugh-out-loud funny. It's also profound. I underlined so many passages in this treasure of a novel. It brought about that conundrum that the best books always do: I couldn't stop reading, even though I didn't want it to end.
— J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs
I loved it! 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 international bestseller Fundamentally
Catherine Newman’s new novel is a rare thing: both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply attuned to the quiet devastations of illness, grief, and family life. In Rocky, a woman mourning her mother’s death while grappling with her own changing health, Newman gives us a narrator whose fierce intelligence and generous heart make even the most ordinary moments shimmer with grace.
— Meghan O'Rourke, New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Kingdom
Catherine Newman has my heart . . . . Newman is my dream writer, and she channels the perfect cocktail of humanity into her characters, especially Rocky. Rocky is funny and dry and emotional and sometimes crazy and always loving, so loving, of her family, even as she struggles and panics. It’s a gift to get to be on the quest with her, and learn alongside her, about how to be alive, to be a person, to be good, to be worthy.
— Lithub (Most Anticipated Books)
Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines . . . . A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
