Catherine Simpson for Sandwiched: Caring Up and Caring Down

Catherine Simpson is a novelist, journalist, poet and short story writer based in Edinburgh. Her memoir One Body was published in 2022, and selected for World Book Night in 2023. This followed her memoir When I Had a Little Sister, published great critical acclaim. Her debut novel Truestory won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. Her work has been published in various anthologies and magazines, published online and broadcast on BBC Radio.

What do you do when your ninety-five-year-old father needs you at exactly the same moment your adult daughter is plunged into crisis?

Pincered tight in the sandwich generation, Catherine Simpson finds herself juggling an ageing father determined to stay independent, a beloved daughter facing down a devastating mental health crisis, and the ongoing daily demands of work and family life.

With extraordinary candour, warmth and laugh-out-loud humour, this is a memoir about love when it can’t fix everything, about finding joy in charity shops, kittens, unlikely friendships and the small moments that keep us going. Honest but never bleak, it explores dementia, grief, autism and resilience with compassion, wit and an unflinching eye for life’s absurdities.

Relatable, deeply moving and surprisingly funny, this is a page-turning story of family in all its glorious chaos – and a reminder that even after the darkest times, there can still be a time to dance..