Wreck

From the NYT bestselling author of We All Want Impossible Things and Sandwich. One family, one year and a novel that reminds us what it means to be beautifully, messily human.

Wreck is described by Alison Espach, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People, as "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."

J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs, praises it as "a delight... Newman's prose is laugh-out-loud funny. It's also profound. I didn't want it to end."

Rocky, Nick, Willa, and Jamie. A normal loving, anxious, messy, unpredictable, relatable family.

Rocky has her own 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.

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," says bestselling author Marian Keyes.

"One of the funniest books I've ever read," says Fearne Cotton in 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," according to 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," notes Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry.

The Guardian remarks, "Newman is truly a master of taking complex and chaotic human emotion and making sense of it... wise and exquisitely written".

"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," says Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake.