Rocky (Rachel) is living in semi-rural Massachusetts with her almost perfect husband, Nick, her gay, anxiety-ridden daughter, Willa, and her 93 year old widower father. She has a sweet, successful married son who lives in New York City. One night Rocky learns that a young man who attended high school with her son was hit by a train and died. Rocky can’t stop obsessing about this boy and his mother’s grief. At about the same time, she discovers a rash that is spreading all over her body. A rash that many doctors are unsure of the cause.

I am at a bit of a disadvantage having not read Newman’s first book about Rocky and her family, Sandwhich. Perhaps that is why I am having a tough time critiquing Wreck. Newman is a clever, humorous writer, but sometimes these elements get in the way of the tragic events that happen in the novel. Wreck, for me, was not bittersweet but instead a fun read that made light of Rocky’s illness and a young man’s death.