Lisa Samson Club Sandwich

Club Sandwich

Lisa Samson

Waterbrook, Jun 2005, $13.99, 352 pp.

ISBN: 1578568854

In the Baltimore suburbs, Ivy Schneider finds life overwhelming. She writes a newspaper column, works at the family restaurant, raises three kids including one in diapers, insures her widowed mom gets her dialysis treatment and has no time for herself. Her spouse Rusty tours with the Heavenly Harmonics gospel barbershop quartet and is away from their bed quite often, failing to accompany her to her twentieth high school reunion.

At the end of her rope, Ivy feels all alone and squeezed from all ends. She places an ad for other individuals trapped as the sandwich generation to contact her. To her surprise several folks do share her feeling that the world is collapsing on her. Together they form CLUB SANDWICH to help one another cope. A stunned Rusty cannot believe his wife depends on strangers rather than him, but how he acts now that Ivy has formed a support group remains to be seen.

This is a deep family drama that centers on the pressure of being the sandwich generation struggling to care for ailing parents and nurturing children at the same time. Ivy is a terrific superwoman feeling the weight of the world with no-one including her spouse to help her balance her responsibilities until she forms the club with similarly "trapped" soul mates. Lisa Samson provides a deep psychological character study that showcases a growing phenomenon.

Harriet Klausner