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Soldier Sailor
Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us and all is well, for now...
In her first novel for over a decade, Claire Kilroy takes us deep into the early days of motherhood. Exploring the clash of fierce love for a new life with a seismic change in identity, she vividly realises the raw, tumultuous emotions of a new mother, as her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of love, autonomy and creativity.
As she smiles at her baby, Sailor, while mentally composing her own suicide note, an old friend makes a welcome return, but can he really offer a lifeline to the woman she used to be?
In her first novel for over a decade, Claire Kilroy takes us deep into the early days of motherhood. Exploring the clash of fierce love for a new life with a seismic change in identity, she vividly realises the raw, tumultuous emotions of a new mother, as her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of love, autonomy and creativity.
As she smiles at her baby, Sailor, while mentally composing her own suicide note, an old friend makes a welcome return, but can he really offer a lifeline to the woman she used to be?
256 pages, ebook
First published May 2, 2023
About the author
Claire Kilroy
7 books169 followersClaire Kilroy is the author of five novels including Soldier Sailor, All Summer, Tenderwire, and The Devil I Know. She was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2004 and has been shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Irish Novel of the Year and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. She studied at Trinity College and lives in Dublin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,033 reviews
August 10, 2023
4,5
Some thoughts:
- five years ago I was sitting in a bar with two friends - who, like me, recently became fathers- and my penny dropped. They were complaining about nagging wives, the complex reality of parenthood and all these stupid chores that entails it. I suddenly realized that I wasn't like them (or rather I was like them but I did't want that), but also that all this time that I had been complementing myself on being a good husband and father, I had been comparing myself with other men. It appeared I did more than them in the household so I saw myself as modern, emancipated, correct. What I failed to do was far more logic: comparing myself to women - in particular my own wife. Was I doing 50% of the household and upbringing? Was I taking a 50/50 of the huge mental load involving being a parent. Could I fathom that doing dishes, bying groceries or cooking were on another level than knowing the size of my child's pants, setting a date with a child- friendly dentist for his first check-up or thinking about the small presents we would give to the other children in the group in the day care on his birthday.
With this in mind I started to upgrade my game. I am not there yet, but almost I think. But reading this novel on motherhood and mental load reminded me that there are still a lot of things that are putting too much weight on -especially- the mother.
- At first I was afraid that the story would remain flat and uneventfull and it would become a grand show of the same trick (a trick- showing what it is to be a mother of a toddler- in which she excells). But after a while it became more dynamic, compelling, nuanced.
-the last 40 pages were so so intense and beautiful. I'm talking 'final episode of Six feet under'-beautiful here. I was magnetized by the writing. Each phrase was so absorbing. So heartfelt. The love. The love. The universal yet so personal all-conquering love for your offspring. And yes I cried. Because at the same time that I felt her love, I felt mine. That's great literature, isn't it?
Some thoughts:
- five years ago I was sitting in a bar with two friends - who, like me, recently became fathers- and my penny dropped. They were complaining about nagging wives, the complex reality of parenthood and all these stupid chores that entails it. I suddenly realized that I wasn't like them (or rather I was like them but I did't want that), but also that all this time that I had been complementing myself on being a good husband and father, I had been comparing myself with other men. It appeared I did more than them in the household so I saw myself as modern, emancipated, correct. What I failed to do was far more logic: comparing myself to women - in particular my own wife. Was I doing 50% of the household and upbringing? Was I taking a 50/50 of the huge mental load involving being a parent. Could I fathom that doing dishes, bying groceries or cooking were on another level than knowing the size of my child's pants, setting a date with a child- friendly dentist for his first check-up or thinking about the small presents we would give to the other children in the group in the day care on his birthday.
With this in mind I started to upgrade my game. I am not there yet, but almost I think. But reading this novel on motherhood and mental load reminded me that there are still a lot of things that are putting too much weight on -especially- the mother.
- At first I was afraid that the story would remain flat and uneventfull and it would become a grand show of the same trick (a trick- showing what it is to be a mother of a toddler- in which she excells). But after a while it became more dynamic, compelling, nuanced.
-the last 40 pages were so so intense and beautiful. I'm talking 'final episode of Six feet under'-beautiful here. I was magnetized by the writing. Each phrase was so absorbing. So heartfelt. The love. The love. The universal yet so personal all-conquering love for your offspring. And yes I cried. Because at the same time that I felt her love, I felt mine. That's great literature, isn't it?
March 1, 2023
He, the son, is Sailor, she, the tiger spirited mother is Soldier who will die to protect him but in the early exhausting, confusing days of motherhood she needs to be ‘at ease’. The two are joined by an everlasting bond but the strain of what she’s lost especially in her former working life identity and in her marriage, leads to a virtual breakdown. Can she return to the woman she used to be especially once she meets an old friend both united in parenthood?
This is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. It’s a tough heartbreaker in places but achingly beautifully written. The writing is so powerful the author makes you feel so many of her emotions. When she’s lost and bereft, so are you, when she’s panicking post near disaster so are you, if she’s exhausted, resentful, lonely or guilty so are you. The bond and the laugher she experiences with Sailor is adorable and an emotional gut puncher. So much of this it’s possible to empathise and relate to especially the early struggles are particularly resonant and many of us will nod our heads and say yes, same for me. Some of Claire Kilroy’s expressions are so original and apt and the inclusion of music and musicians such as Bowie are extremely clever. She also makes a commentary on gender, some is ironic, some is 100% pertinent and all of it is smart. At times it times it makes me laugh, there are some darkly funny scenes, often in supermarkets, these are excellent! Through her friend and looking back at the freedom of youth and Sailor emerging from those difficult early years, the joy emerges as does sunlight.
This is a love letter to Sailor, an ode to her son if you will. It’s a commentary on motherhood, it’s struggles and it’s delights which brings with it a life long love even when you’re old and grey. The ending is simply wonderful and leaves me with tears running down my face. This is a fantastic book and a sheer privilege to read.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Faber and Faber for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
This is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. It’s a tough heartbreaker in places but achingly beautifully written. The writing is so powerful the author makes you feel so many of her emotions. When she’s lost and bereft, so are you, when she’s panicking post near disaster so are you, if she’s exhausted, resentful, lonely or guilty so are you. The bond and the laugher she experiences with Sailor is adorable and an emotional gut puncher. So much of this it’s possible to empathise and relate to especially the early struggles are particularly resonant and many of us will nod our heads and say yes, same for me. Some of Claire Kilroy’s expressions are so original and apt and the inclusion of music and musicians such as Bowie are extremely clever. She also makes a commentary on gender, some is ironic, some is 100% pertinent and all of it is smart. At times it times it makes me laugh, there are some darkly funny scenes, often in supermarkets, these are excellent! Through her friend and looking back at the freedom of youth and Sailor emerging from those difficult early years, the joy emerges as does sunlight.
This is a love letter to Sailor, an ode to her son if you will. It’s a commentary on motherhood, it’s struggles and it’s delights which brings with it a life long love even when you’re old and grey. The ending is simply wonderful and leaves me with tears running down my face. This is a fantastic book and a sheer privilege to read.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Faber and Faber for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
April 24, 2024
Update : Now shortlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 - Dissapointed about this one and the fact that my top 2 books from the longlist were ignored. Such a safe / commercial shortlist. Not a single book from what I know that it is a little bit unconventional.
Longlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 -This year, I tried to read the controversial 'A Life's Work' by Rachel Cusk and I was surprised that there was nothing shocking or even informative about it anymore, so I ended up DNFing it. However, I did finish Claire Killroy's 'Soldier Sailor,' a novel about the same horrors and joys of motherhood. The writing is good, but I also think that she isn't doing anything new. Rachel Cusk wrote about the same subject 20 years ago. The book needed a little bit more of a story at least for me.
Longlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 -This year, I tried to read the controversial 'A Life's Work' by Rachel Cusk and I was surprised that there was nothing shocking or even informative about it anymore, so I ended up DNFing it. However, I did finish Claire Killroy's 'Soldier Sailor,' a novel about the same horrors and joys of motherhood. The writing is good, but I also think that she isn't doing anything new. Rachel Cusk wrote about the same subject 20 years ago. The book needed a little bit more of a story at least for me.
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July 12, 2024This book stressed me out. 😬
Check out my Women's Prize Deep Dive on BookTube at Hello, Bookworm.📚🐛
"...this was freelance motherhood: struggling to contain your screams while struggling to contain my own, which were louder and angrier and scared us both."
Hats off to Claire Kilroy for writing the most stress-inducing book I think I've ever read. She so successfully conveys the agony of being a new parent that I found myself continually wincing and clenching my jaw. Never before has my decision to remain blissfully childfree felt so validated.
Soldier Sailordrops us into the mind of a woman who’s struggling with new motherhood. The story is conveyed through the mother speaking to her son, recounting the endless array of hurdles she faced as a new mother. One day she unexpectedly sees an old friend at a park, who is also a new parent, and that friend becomes a point of comparison between who she used to be vs. who she is now, as well as the state of her marriage and how’s she doing as a parent.
Kilroy’s writing style is efficient yet emotive. She so effectively conveys the stress of being a parent, that I was wincing, cringing, and clenching my jaw the entire time I read this book. The tension never lets up, and after I read the final page, I felt emotionally drained and exhausted.
If you enjoyed this book, check out And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliot.
Check out my Women's Prize Deep Dive on BookTube at Hello, Bookworm.📚🐛
"...this was freelance motherhood: struggling to contain your screams while struggling to contain my own, which were louder and angrier and scared us both."
Hats off to Claire Kilroy for writing the most stress-inducing book I think I've ever read. She so successfully conveys the agony of being a new parent that I found myself continually wincing and clenching my jaw. Never before has my decision to remain blissfully childfree felt so validated.
Soldier Sailordrops us into the mind of a woman who’s struggling with new motherhood. The story is conveyed through the mother speaking to her son, recounting the endless array of hurdles she faced as a new mother. One day she unexpectedly sees an old friend at a park, who is also a new parent, and that friend becomes a point of comparison between who she used to be vs. who she is now, as well as the state of her marriage and how’s she doing as a parent.
Kilroy’s writing style is efficient yet emotive. She so effectively conveys the stress of being a parent, that I was wincing, cringing, and clenching my jaw the entire time I read this book. The tension never lets up, and after I read the final page, I felt emotionally drained and exhausted.
If you enjoyed this book, check out And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliot.
June 5, 2023
Wow, this was intense. I'll never experience motherhood, but after reading this novel I'm quite relieved about that fact. Claire Kilroy imagines it all as psychological horror in this raw and visceral tale.
It's told by a woman, Soldier, speaking to her infant son, Sailor. Parenthood has completely taken over her life, and she is struggling, to put it mildly. Day-to-day stuff is grinding her down - the lack of sleep, the endless meal preparation, the nappy changes. That's all tough enough as it is, but then there are the bigger incidents involving her boy - like when he goes missing in IKEA, the time he bangs his head on the floor ending up with a bruise the size of a golf ball, his terrifying fever in the middle of the night, with her desperately trying to get hold of a doctor. It's no wonder she's at her wits' end. But it doesn't help that her husband is absolutely useless at parenting, and she resents him massively for it. They argue constantly. Her one ray of sunshine is a friend from school, who attends the same playground with his own band of rugrats. They reminisce about old times, when life was simpler.
Because the story is from a single point of view, it's totally one-sided, and a few doubts begin to creep in about Sailor's account of certain things. However, the agony she is going through is unquestionable. We get an inside view into motherhood, and it's mostly negative to be honest. There are moments when the light creeps in, and love for her son threatens to make her heart burst. The final section of the novel in particular is incredibly moving as she talks about time - savouring precious years together in the future before age withers them both. But is it worth all the torture and mental anguish that she's currently experiencing? The bottom line is that she needs help, and she's not getting any. This one of those books that taught me about a part of life I now realise I know little about. I found it powerful and shocking - Soldier Sailor is not for the faint-hearted, and it leaves an indelible impression.
Favourite Quotes:
"The impulse to shove my husband hard in the chest was so strong that I turned and staggered away to thwart it, grappling with the doors and bannisters that came rearing up at me as if I was on a conveyor belt because I wasn't in my right mind any more."
"Our love was a song, I thought. I couldn't quite remember how the song went but I couldn't quite forget it either. Phrases of melody kept drifting past. I strained to catch them but in straining, lost them."
"Sailor
When no one else knows
Or cares
Oh, someone will always care for you!
Promise me someone will always care for you!
Sailor
My Sailor
For a few years more
When you are staring at me watching the time go because I can't remember the end of my sentence
The way I stared at you watching the time go because you didn't yet know the words for your question"
It's told by a woman, Soldier, speaking to her infant son, Sailor. Parenthood has completely taken over her life, and she is struggling, to put it mildly. Day-to-day stuff is grinding her down - the lack of sleep, the endless meal preparation, the nappy changes. That's all tough enough as it is, but then there are the bigger incidents involving her boy - like when he goes missing in IKEA, the time he bangs his head on the floor ending up with a bruise the size of a golf ball, his terrifying fever in the middle of the night, with her desperately trying to get hold of a doctor. It's no wonder she's at her wits' end. But it doesn't help that her husband is absolutely useless at parenting, and she resents him massively for it. They argue constantly. Her one ray of sunshine is a friend from school, who attends the same playground with his own band of rugrats. They reminisce about old times, when life was simpler.
Because the story is from a single point of view, it's totally one-sided, and a few doubts begin to creep in about Sailor's account of certain things. However, the agony she is going through is unquestionable. We get an inside view into motherhood, and it's mostly negative to be honest. There are moments when the light creeps in, and love for her son threatens to make her heart burst. The final section of the novel in particular is incredibly moving as she talks about time - savouring precious years together in the future before age withers them both. But is it worth all the torture and mental anguish that she's currently experiencing? The bottom line is that she needs help, and she's not getting any. This one of those books that taught me about a part of life I now realise I know little about. I found it powerful and shocking - Soldier Sailor is not for the faint-hearted, and it leaves an indelible impression.
Favourite Quotes:
"The impulse to shove my husband hard in the chest was so strong that I turned and staggered away to thwart it, grappling with the doors and bannisters that came rearing up at me as if I was on a conveyor belt because I wasn't in my right mind any more."
"Our love was a song, I thought. I couldn't quite remember how the song went but I couldn't quite forget it either. Phrases of melody kept drifting past. I strained to catch them but in straining, lost them."
"Sailor
When no one else knows
Or cares
Oh, someone will always care for you!
Promise me someone will always care for you!
Sailor
My Sailor
For a few years more
When you are staring at me watching the time go because I can't remember the end of my sentence
The way I stared at you watching the time go because you didn't yet know the words for your question"
May 12, 2024
Although it's not something that occurred to me when I began this book or while I was reading, it's entirely appropriate that I would finish this on Mother's Day. It is a first person account of a mother to her son recounting those early days of infancy, toddlerhood and preschooler. If you have children, you understand. The feeling of incompetence at having a creature that demands all of you, and more. The rage at husbands and men who can so easily escape because they have to make a living. The need of just a few minutes of silence and freedom; the tiredness, the scrambled "mommy brain", the fear of not doing the right thing, the loss of who you were "before".
Kilroy shows it all. Those horrible moments of panic when you turn away for a moment and your child disappears, 5, 10, 15 minutes of unending horror until you locate him. The absolute fear when the fever shoots up in the middle of the night. The times when you want with all your heart to walk out the door and be free of this responsibility. The need to murder your husband for being able to sleep through the night. Of course, everyone's circumstances are different, some husband's are more helpful, some have no husbands at all, some have extended family to help, but if you have a child, some variations on this story are familiar to you. In my case, my husband was pretty helpful and understanding, but I remember once when I asked him to watch our daughter while I ran an errand, he commented, " You know, I really can't get anything done if I have to watch her." Riiiiight. When I came home she was nowhere to be found and turned up at a neighbor's house where she'd gone without permission. He assumed she was quietly playing. Safe, this time.
"So much of parenting is about getting away with it."
The last chapter is so beautiful, I finished in tears. She's talking to her future son about what a mother's love is exactly, how it never dies, giving him advice.
"You will cast off your maternal shackles, venture forth and fuck up, and that's part of the game, the glorious game we were put on this earth to play."
"They say you grow wiser as you grow older, Sailor, but, well, don't hold your breath."
Did I say that a lot of this book is very funny too?
A book that can make you laugh and cry and nod your head in recognition is worth 5 stars any day.
Kilroy shows it all. Those horrible moments of panic when you turn away for a moment and your child disappears, 5, 10, 15 minutes of unending horror until you locate him. The absolute fear when the fever shoots up in the middle of the night. The times when you want with all your heart to walk out the door and be free of this responsibility. The need to murder your husband for being able to sleep through the night. Of course, everyone's circumstances are different, some husband's are more helpful, some have no husbands at all, some have extended family to help, but if you have a child, some variations on this story are familiar to you. In my case, my husband was pretty helpful and understanding, but I remember once when I asked him to watch our daughter while I ran an errand, he commented, " You know, I really can't get anything done if I have to watch her." Riiiiight. When I came home she was nowhere to be found and turned up at a neighbor's house where she'd gone without permission. He assumed she was quietly playing. Safe, this time.
"So much of parenting is about getting away with it."
The last chapter is so beautiful, I finished in tears. She's talking to her future son about what a mother's love is exactly, how it never dies, giving him advice.
"You will cast off your maternal shackles, venture forth and fuck up, and that's part of the game, the glorious game we were put on this earth to play."
"They say you grow wiser as you grow older, Sailor, but, well, don't hold your breath."
Did I say that a lot of this book is very funny too?
A book that can make you laugh and cry and nod your head in recognition is worth 5 stars any day.
March 6, 2024
Now longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.
I had the great pleasure of reviewing this book for The Stinging Fly, who let me go on and on about animals in books about motherhood, wilderness, beastliness, safety and vulnerability. The full review is here, and I've posted a few paragraphs below.
Early in Claire Kilroy’s new novel Soldier Sailor, the protagonist is alone in a forest glade when
she nearly steps upon a creature new born:
Unviably large head, purple body all elbows, bulbous eyelids sealed shut and a yellow beak. The merest membrane of skin. A hatchling.
‘Soldier’, as we come to know her, is a newish mother who has finally cracked. Sleep-deprived, depressed (‘it’s not post-natal depression it’s life-is-shit depression’), and now convinced her baby would be better off without her, she has left months-old ‘Sailor’ on a footpath and come to the forest to kill herself. The blackbird baby, collateral damage of nature’s great impersonal project, sends her running back.
Female artists have long made use of wild creatures to elucidate the pressures and contradictions of life—after all, for much of history, women had no more rights than animals. Examples run the gamut from the various beasts that threaten or accompany women in fairy tales (and their retellings), to, say, Leonora Carrington’s use of animal figures to reveal the wildest elements of women’s psyches. In the burgeoning genre of women’s writing about motherhood, several books make deft use of animal metaphors to conjure some of the blood, gore, and existential shifts missing from our culture’s sanitised image of birth and its aftermath.
I had the great pleasure of reviewing this book for The Stinging Fly, who let me go on and on about animals in books about motherhood, wilderness, beastliness, safety and vulnerability. The full review is here, and I've posted a few paragraphs below.
Early in Claire Kilroy’s new novel Soldier Sailor, the protagonist is alone in a forest glade when
she nearly steps upon a creature new born:
Unviably large head, purple body all elbows, bulbous eyelids sealed shut and a yellow beak. The merest membrane of skin. A hatchling.
‘Soldier’, as we come to know her, is a newish mother who has finally cracked. Sleep-deprived, depressed (‘it’s not post-natal depression it’s life-is-shit depression’), and now convinced her baby would be better off without her, she has left months-old ‘Sailor’ on a footpath and come to the forest to kill herself. The blackbird baby, collateral damage of nature’s great impersonal project, sends her running back.
Female artists have long made use of wild creatures to elucidate the pressures and contradictions of life—after all, for much of history, women had no more rights than animals. Examples run the gamut from the various beasts that threaten or accompany women in fairy tales (and their retellings), to, say, Leonora Carrington’s use of animal figures to reveal the wildest elements of women’s psyches. In the burgeoning genre of women’s writing about motherhood, several books make deft use of animal metaphors to conjure some of the blood, gore, and existential shifts missing from our culture’s sanitised image of birth and its aftermath.
April 3, 2024
Rating: 2/5 stars
Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us and all is well, for now...
When everybody and their mom (yes, I just dared to make that awful pun) so unanimously seems to love a novel, I always feel a kind of guilt for feeling differently. Claire Kilroy’s latest novel has been received with almost universal acclaim, but unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing for me.
Soldier Sailor is a stream of consciousness-style monologue of a woman to her newborn son, in which she reflects on the struggles new motherhood, and the seeming impossibility of this task that seems to come so natural to every other woman around her. Kilroy captures that feeling that many new mothers have felt well, and I can understand the appeal in seeing oneself reflected on page like this. My problem with it, is that there are already so many books that do this exact same thing.
I am truly grateful that we’ve lifted the taboo on speaking on the downsides of having children in recent years. We’ve taken motherhood off its pedestal as “the highest, most honorable calling for a woman”, to its far more nuanced reality, and it’s high time we did! For that reason, I’m happy about last decades increasing trend of troubled-motherhood-fiction, and even motherhood-horror-fiction. In fact: I have a pretty good stack of them on my shelves. My problem with Soldier Sailor, is that it’s just another book on that stack, bringing nothing new to the table. Although the words Kilroy choses are beautiful, the message is familiar and even trite.
What brought the book down from a 3 to a 2-star rating was the general negative picture the novel paints of men. I see this often in feminist novels, where either attempts to uplift a woman, or critiques aimed at one individual man cross the line into generalized man-hate. I’m very tired of that trope. Soldiers husband clearly isn’t the picture-perfect family-husband and deserved some criticism for that, but we didn’t need to generalize this into a guilt-trip directed at all men. From constant references to “the mans-world” out there, to quips about “only a man being able to design a car-seat with straps to free their hands from the baby”, to passive aggressive advise directed to her (infant!) boy about how to respect women when he’s grown. It crossed a line from righteous annoyance to wallowing in victimhood for me.
Overall, I can’t recommend this book, but I’m clearly in the minority here, so don’t let it deter you. Many thanks to Faber&Faber for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
On a completely separate note, specifically to the publisher: my reviews are about the content of the book, but I have to mention it. This cover is the most hideous thing and does not do the book any favours. I really hope they will consider a cover change on a next release.
Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us and all is well, for now...
When everybody and their mom (yes, I just dared to make that awful pun) so unanimously seems to love a novel, I always feel a kind of guilt for feeling differently. Claire Kilroy’s latest novel has been received with almost universal acclaim, but unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing for me.
Soldier Sailor is a stream of consciousness-style monologue of a woman to her newborn son, in which she reflects on the struggles new motherhood, and the seeming impossibility of this task that seems to come so natural to every other woman around her. Kilroy captures that feeling that many new mothers have felt well, and I can understand the appeal in seeing oneself reflected on page like this. My problem with it, is that there are already so many books that do this exact same thing.
I am truly grateful that we’ve lifted the taboo on speaking on the downsides of having children in recent years. We’ve taken motherhood off its pedestal as “the highest, most honorable calling for a woman”, to its far more nuanced reality, and it’s high time we did! For that reason, I’m happy about last decades increasing trend of troubled-motherhood-fiction, and even motherhood-horror-fiction. In fact: I have a pretty good stack of them on my shelves. My problem with Soldier Sailor, is that it’s just another book on that stack, bringing nothing new to the table. Although the words Kilroy choses are beautiful, the message is familiar and even trite.
What brought the book down from a 3 to a 2-star rating was the general negative picture the novel paints of men. I see this often in feminist novels, where either attempts to uplift a woman, or critiques aimed at one individual man cross the line into generalized man-hate. I’m very tired of that trope. Soldiers husband clearly isn’t the picture-perfect family-husband and deserved some criticism for that, but we didn’t need to generalize this into a guilt-trip directed at all men. From constant references to “the mans-world” out there, to quips about “only a man being able to design a car-seat with straps to free their hands from the baby”, to passive aggressive advise directed to her (infant!) boy about how to respect women when he’s grown. It crossed a line from righteous annoyance to wallowing in victimhood for me.
Overall, I can’t recommend this book, but I’m clearly in the minority here, so don’t let it deter you. Many thanks to Faber&Faber for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
On a completely separate note, specifically to the publisher: my reviews are about the content of the book, but I have to mention it. This cover is the most hideous thing and does not do the book any favours. I really hope they will consider a cover change on a next release.
July 20, 2024
#Mothering May #5
Hadn’t thought of death until I had you. A door opened when you entered my life and that door goes two ways. (…) Here is your baby. One day you will lose him. He will lose you. You will all lose each other, and he never called her Mama again.
Quando terminei “Soldier Sailor” em Janeiro, incapaz de escrever uma palavra que fosse sobre ele sem me emocionar, pensei: “Este é o meu livro do ano e desafio qualquer outro a tirá-lo do pódio.” Estamos quase a meio do ano e ainda nenhum outro o superou, mesmo tendo lido obras fabulosas. Mais uma vez, espero que acabe por ser publicado em Portugal e também que seja o vencedor do Women’s Prize for Fiction no dia 13 de Junho, porque merece, porque tem sido aclamado por quase todos os que o têm lido e, assim, talvez chegue cá.
Se este livro tivesse sido feito a meu pedido, não poderia ser mais perfeito, não que eu me identifique a 100% com a protagonista, mas porque creio que nela convergem uma miríade de facetas da maternidade e que ela se debate com dificuldades que a maioria das mães reconhecem como suas nos primeiros anos de vida de um bebé, seja em maior ou menor grau, como, por exemplo, a exaustão…
No, I was not recovering. Recovery requires rest. There was too much to be done to sleep or eat. Or even go to the toilet. New mothers say this in amazement, laughing like it’s funny, when it’s not funny, and we’re not laughing: we are bewildered, we are floored.
…a solidão e a frustração…
This was my life now, this was freelance motherhood: struggling to contain your screams while struggling to contain my own.
…a tensão entre o casal…
This is how marriages fall apart, Sailor. Not over infidelity or even lack of love, but over batteries, antibiotics, car seats.
…a perda de identidade…
Eat it, smoke it, stay up all night for it because the memories of the damage you wreak upon your body when you are young will sustain your spirit when you are old. You reach a point, Sailor, when the fun stops.
It just.
Stops.
Ler este livro é como arrancar pensos rápidos dos sítios mais sensíveis, mas há verdades que têm de ser ditas, mesmo que sejam cruas, mesmo que sejam desagradáveis para alguns, por vezes com um sarcasmo que reconheço e advogo.
I cannot be the first woman to wonder how many vegetables I have peeled. The figure should be displayed on our gravestones: ‘This woman peeled however many tonnes of potatoes, let’s hear it for Mrs Whatever!’ And her husband? Well, he just ate them.
A irlandesa Claire Kilroy escreveu aqui uma carta de amor e desespero de Soldier (alcunha da juventude) ao seu filho Sailor.
It is late and I am tired. There are things I must tell you. Bad things, dark things, things I have concealed. Your trust is so blind that it hurts. I almost left you once.
“Soldier Sailor” é, inevitavelmente, um livro feminista que se insurge contra o patriarcado pela perpetuação do papel tradicional da mulher enquanto mãe, mesmo em pleno século XXI, não ficando o marido da protagonista muito bem visto na fotografia.
I love you because you do everything, he was telling me, even though you’re exhausted, your eyes hollow sockets. I love you because you haven’t had a day off in over a year now yet still you keep going, slogging on in sickness and in health, raising our child so I don’t have to. I love you and I will tell you so to deflect your criticism and assuage my guilt.
Apesar de tudo, não é de modo algum um livro misândrico, e isso é bem visível quando Soldier reencontra um amigo da juventude que não só a deixa recuperar parte da rapariga que foi, (a que ouvia os passarinhos, a que ouvia Prince e David Bowie), mas também é como que o seu correspondente masculino numa inversão de papéis, já que é o cuidador dos três filhos, o pai que fica em casa enquanto a mãe sai para trabalhar.
A angústia de Soldier é tão aguda que se pode até suspeitar de depressão pós-parto, um problema que creio ter vários cambiantes e ainda não está suficientemente explorado em ficção para que as leitoras se sintam vistas. Mas eu, tal como a protagonista, acredito que não é disso que se trata.
‘This is life-is-shit depression. All I do is housework and childcare and I’m sleep-deprived and think-deprived because I never get a moment to myself, not even in the toilet.’
“Soldier Sailor” é um exorcismo, um livro brutalmente honesto e corajoso que me moeu, mas eu perdoo-lhe pela sua excelência.
Hadn’t thought of death until I had you. A door opened when you entered my life and that door goes two ways. (…) Here is your baby. One day you will lose him. He will lose you. You will all lose each other, and he never called her Mama again.
Quando terminei “Soldier Sailor” em Janeiro, incapaz de escrever uma palavra que fosse sobre ele sem me emocionar, pensei: “Este é o meu livro do ano e desafio qualquer outro a tirá-lo do pódio.” Estamos quase a meio do ano e ainda nenhum outro o superou, mesmo tendo lido obras fabulosas. Mais uma vez, espero que acabe por ser publicado em Portugal e também que seja o vencedor do Women’s Prize for Fiction no dia 13 de Junho, porque merece, porque tem sido aclamado por quase todos os que o têm lido e, assim, talvez chegue cá.
Se este livro tivesse sido feito a meu pedido, não poderia ser mais perfeito, não que eu me identifique a 100% com a protagonista, mas porque creio que nela convergem uma miríade de facetas da maternidade e que ela se debate com dificuldades que a maioria das mães reconhecem como suas nos primeiros anos de vida de um bebé, seja em maior ou menor grau, como, por exemplo, a exaustão…
No, I was not recovering. Recovery requires rest. There was too much to be done to sleep or eat. Or even go to the toilet. New mothers say this in amazement, laughing like it’s funny, when it’s not funny, and we’re not laughing: we are bewildered, we are floored.
…a solidão e a frustração…
This was my life now, this was freelance motherhood: struggling to contain your screams while struggling to contain my own.
…a tensão entre o casal…
This is how marriages fall apart, Sailor. Not over infidelity or even lack of love, but over batteries, antibiotics, car seats.
…a perda de identidade…
Eat it, smoke it, stay up all night for it because the memories of the damage you wreak upon your body when you are young will sustain your spirit when you are old. You reach a point, Sailor, when the fun stops.
It just.
Stops.
Ler este livro é como arrancar pensos rápidos dos sítios mais sensíveis, mas há verdades que têm de ser ditas, mesmo que sejam cruas, mesmo que sejam desagradáveis para alguns, por vezes com um sarcasmo que reconheço e advogo.
I cannot be the first woman to wonder how many vegetables I have peeled. The figure should be displayed on our gravestones: ‘This woman peeled however many tonnes of potatoes, let’s hear it for Mrs Whatever!’ And her husband? Well, he just ate them.
A irlandesa Claire Kilroy escreveu aqui uma carta de amor e desespero de Soldier (alcunha da juventude) ao seu filho Sailor.
It is late and I am tired. There are things I must tell you. Bad things, dark things, things I have concealed. Your trust is so blind that it hurts. I almost left you once.
“Soldier Sailor” é, inevitavelmente, um livro feminista que se insurge contra o patriarcado pela perpetuação do papel tradicional da mulher enquanto mãe, mesmo em pleno século XXI, não ficando o marido da protagonista muito bem visto na fotografia.
I love you because you do everything, he was telling me, even though you’re exhausted, your eyes hollow sockets. I love you because you haven’t had a day off in over a year now yet still you keep going, slogging on in sickness and in health, raising our child so I don’t have to. I love you and I will tell you so to deflect your criticism and assuage my guilt.
Apesar de tudo, não é de modo algum um livro misândrico, e isso é bem visível quando Soldier reencontra um amigo da juventude que não só a deixa recuperar parte da rapariga que foi, (a que ouvia os passarinhos, a que ouvia Prince e David Bowie), mas também é como que o seu correspondente masculino numa inversão de papéis, já que é o cuidador dos três filhos, o pai que fica em casa enquanto a mãe sai para trabalhar.
A angústia de Soldier é tão aguda que se pode até suspeitar de depressão pós-parto, um problema que creio ter vários cambiantes e ainda não está suficientemente explorado em ficção para que as leitoras se sintam vistas. Mas eu, tal como a protagonista, acredito que não é disso que se trata.
‘This is life-is-shit depression. All I do is housework and childcare and I’m sleep-deprived and think-deprived because I never get a moment to myself, not even in the toilet.’
“Soldier Sailor” é um exorcismo, um livro brutalmente honesto e corajoso que me moeu, mas eu perdoo-lhe pela sua excelência.
August 6, 2023
This was soooo good! I've never read a novel about motherhood that is as open and honest as this one. Intense and sometimes raw, but always truthful and wonderfully written. The total love for one's child (also the physical sense and the wanting to die for one's child), the struggle for time for oneself/autonomy, the loneliness & tiredness, and a husband that won't help. Kilroy tells you relentlessly what it's like .
Like many other goodreads reviewers I can't believe this book was overlooked by the Booker jury...
Thanks very much Faber & Faber and Netgalley for the ARC.
Like many other goodreads reviewers I can't believe this book was overlooked by the Booker jury...
Thanks very much Faber & Faber and Netgalley for the ARC.
June 11, 2024
“Soldier Sailor” by Claire Kilroy was just released here this past week and is on the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the winner being announced June 13. It is the story of a woman raising her infant and losing herself as she finds her whole world turned upside-down. She is always exhausted, emotionally spent, and feeling bad about feeling bad. Of course she loves her son, repeating she would kill for him– she would die for him. At her lowest point she momentarily abandoned him with the notion he could be raised by someone better.
She has no support system. Her husband has no understanding of her plight. He spends an excessive amount of time at work and then assumes a patronizing demeanor when she complains or begs for help.
“All I do is housework and childcare and I’m sleep-deprived and think-deprived because I never get a moment to myself, not even in the toilet… You’d like to diagnose postnatal depression because then it’s not your fault.”
Now here is my problem with the book, my problem. The first half is so tight, depicting the desperation so well– it feels claustrophobic. The repeated head-butting with her dense husband was going nowhere and it was hard to keep plodding on. Luckily, she meets an old friend in the park, a man raising three children, and their interaction relieves a lot of her frustration and depressurizes some of the book's tension.
While I would not read the book again, it does do what it sets out to do. It depicts the absolute madness one can go through raising an infant. I suppose if it was light and breezy to read, it would not be communicating the absolute hell the mother was going through.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
She has no support system. Her husband has no understanding of her plight. He spends an excessive amount of time at work and then assumes a patronizing demeanor when she complains or begs for help.
“All I do is housework and childcare and I’m sleep-deprived and think-deprived because I never get a moment to myself, not even in the toilet… You’d like to diagnose postnatal depression because then it’s not your fault.”
Now here is my problem with the book, my problem. The first half is so tight, depicting the desperation so well– it feels claustrophobic. The repeated head-butting with her dense husband was going nowhere and it was hard to keep plodding on. Luckily, she meets an old friend in the park, a man raising three children, and their interaction relieves a lot of her frustration and depressurizes some of the book's tension.
While I would not read the book again, it does do what it sets out to do. It depicts the absolute madness one can go through raising an infant. I suppose if it was light and breezy to read, it would not be communicating the absolute hell the mother was going through.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 17, 2023
I don’t want to be one of those insufferable people who starts sentences with ‘as a mother…’, and yet here I am. As a mother, I found this book incredibly raw and honest in a way that most books about motherhood are not. There is nothing saccharine to be found here. Although I can’t relate to every part of this woman’s story, I can relate to a lot of it. It’s like she found an open wound and stuck her finger in and dug around. I am interested to hear how those who have not experienced motherhood find this one. For me it was an exceptional read, and one that I will remember for a long time to come. A favourite of 2023.
June 3, 2024
“And quiet, how quiet you were, so quiet that I could think. You’ve no idea what your screams did to me, Sailor. I’ve no idea what they did either. They shook my brain, flung it in whirling fragments like the contents of a snow globe. But as we walked, the spinning particles drifted back to earth to form a layer, acquiring cohesion once more, concord, an explosion in reverse. Step by step, street by street, my mind softly returned to itself. It came to rest on the surface around us, concealing the disarray, tamping down the chaos, and I pushed you through a new landscape, which was, I suppose, the old landscape, that of my own head before it was scattered to the four winds, a mind of winter I barely recognized, I had been away that long.”
Holy Mother of… Sailor.
After not being able to write anything for ten years, Claire Kilroy put down in words what you cannot put down in words: how giving birth reshuffles your entire being into a mass of particles that act randomly, appear and disappear, disintegrating your relationship to time and self.
She recreates the Mother as Quantum Theory. A quantum object, she is everywhere and nowhere all at once, she has disappeared yet she has never been so electrifyingly present. Minute after minute after minute after minute. 90% exhaustion. 10% ecstasy. Little hands around your neck can sustain you like water and air.
What happens to the Mother when you take away the village that it takes to raise a child?
A conflagration. A rapture. A trial by fire. A reckoning.
And in a spellbinding ending that will take your breath away, stylistically and emotionally, Claire Kilroy also put down in words what we cannot put down in words: how after the years when time froze and went by in the blink of an eye, time suddenly quickens and accelerates, hurling you back into your mortal coil, making you painfully aware of how fast things are going but also acutely aware of how deep the invisible bond between mother Soldier and Sailor child is.
A love made of protons, neutrons and electrons, an energy that cannot be created or destroyed, that cannot be put down in words.
And yet Claire Kilroy did just that.
Holy Mother of… Sailor.
After not being able to write anything for ten years, Claire Kilroy put down in words what you cannot put down in words: how giving birth reshuffles your entire being into a mass of particles that act randomly, appear and disappear, disintegrating your relationship to time and self.
She recreates the Mother as Quantum Theory. A quantum object, she is everywhere and nowhere all at once, she has disappeared yet she has never been so electrifyingly present. Minute after minute after minute after minute. 90% exhaustion. 10% ecstasy. Little hands around your neck can sustain you like water and air.
What happens to the Mother when you take away the village that it takes to raise a child?
A conflagration. A rapture. A trial by fire. A reckoning.
And in a spellbinding ending that will take your breath away, stylistically and emotionally, Claire Kilroy also put down in words what we cannot put down in words: how after the years when time froze and went by in the blink of an eye, time suddenly quickens and accelerates, hurling you back into your mortal coil, making you painfully aware of how fast things are going but also acutely aware of how deep the invisible bond between mother Soldier and Sailor child is.
A love made of protons, neutrons and electrons, an energy that cannot be created or destroyed, that cannot be put down in words.
And yet Claire Kilroy did just that.
October 23, 2023
We found ourselves in front of the spinning carousel, waiting for it to stop. A little girl was already on board. The etiquette surrounding communal rides was awkward at best. The wheel had to be dragged to a halt to allow you to board, then all the sorrys and say thank yous to the other mother and child. ‘I don’t want the little boy,’ the little girl said to her mother, who told her to be nice.
I stood back and pushed, taking in the little girl. This was an impressive speech for one so small. I enquired after her age. Three months younger than you. ‘Wow,’ I said, feeling a chill, ‘she’s very advanced, isn’t she?’ Her mother smiled ruefully. ‘Oh, she never shuts up!’ Little girls are so much more articulate than their male counterparts. But don’t worry, Sailor: you’ll still be paid more than them.
Soldier Sailor is a fictional novelisation of the experiences Claire Kilroy originally documented in her 2015 essay F ofr Phone.
There are times when it read a little like a newspaper column told by a hapless individual - a motherhood version of Tim Dowling or Nicholas Lazard - Bridget Jones but with Soldier’s husband playing Daniel and cheating with golf (swapped from her own husband's cycling) and life outside of the house in general, full of highly quotable lines:
I gave up on the socks and looked at you. How committed you were to being a baby. You stayed up half the night practising.
But at other times the prose soars and elevates the novel, one that burns both with an anger at the inequality of parenthood (which in the case of the Irish Republic is, rather astonishingly, still enshrined in Article 41.2 of the constitution, albeit with plans for a referendum on the topic) but also, indeed more, so with a fierce love.
I stood back and pushed, taking in the little girl. This was an impressive speech for one so small. I enquired after her age. Three months younger than you. ‘Wow,’ I said, feeling a chill, ‘she’s very advanced, isn’t she?’ Her mother smiled ruefully. ‘Oh, she never shuts up!’ Little girls are so much more articulate than their male counterparts. But don’t worry, Sailor: you’ll still be paid more than them.
Soldier Sailor is a fictional novelisation of the experiences Claire Kilroy originally documented in her 2015 essay F ofr Phone.
There are times when it read a little like a newspaper column told by a hapless individual - a motherhood version of Tim Dowling or Nicholas Lazard - Bridget Jones but with Soldier’s husband playing Daniel and cheating with golf (swapped from her own husband's cycling) and life outside of the house in general, full of highly quotable lines:
I gave up on the socks and looked at you. How committed you were to being a baby. You stayed up half the night practising.
But at other times the prose soars and elevates the novel, one that burns both with an anger at the inequality of parenthood (which in the case of the Irish Republic is, rather astonishingly, still enshrined in Article 41.2 of the constitution, albeit with plans for a referendum on the topic) but also, indeed more, so with a fierce love.
Read
July 16, 2024“Escrito em forma de fluxo de consciência, esta mulher vai explicando todas as coisas dolorosas por que passou com o nascimento do filho, mas fá-lo com um carinho extremo — acho que nunca tinha lido nada que mostrasse tão bem a dualidade de sentimentos que invadem uma mulher numa altura destas. Por um lado, há a felicidade de ser mãe, a ligação profunda que esta mulher tem ao filho; por outro, há a exaustão, as horas que passam sem que saiba bem para onde foram, a perda de identidade, a falta de partilha desta carga com outra pessoa.”
Review completa em: https://ritadanova.blogs.sapo.pt/sold....
Review completa em: https://ritadanova.blogs.sapo.pt/sold....
October 4, 2024
Shortlisted for the Women's prize 2024
This book has been on my reading table for far too long. I also had the audio from Libby 2x and finally two days before its auto-return I decided to pick it up. My hesitation was due to what I had heard about its subject and my own tolerance or lack of at this point in my life. A little about me. I spent over 30 years helping women in pregnancy and delivery. I delivered babies at home, in hospitals (mostly) and in birth centers. I listened to women describe their expectations for the coming birth and often how unrealistically they pictured what motherhood would be. I've been retired now almost 8 years. My tolerance for complaints about all the work of mothering and how difficult and unappreciated the daily work of motherhood is, is extremely low.
That is what this book is in a nutshell. A young woman complaining about all the work of being a stay at home Mother to her first child and how little help or understanding she gets from her spouse. There are some really beautiful passages and Kilroy writes an exceptional novel. It does give a detailed description of how difficult, time consuming, and sleep deprived the early years can be. Also some moments of great insight.
But there were too many times I wanted to shake this mother and say, "What were you expecting? Didn't you know your spouse before going in? If you are so unhappy with this part of your life, there are solutions. What might you do to help yourself besides complain."
I felt sorry for not being more empathetic but motherhood is difficult and will also often be the greatest joy in your life--too soon over. The book could have used more of that joy rather than so much of the difficulty. A child is love beyond imagining until you do it.
“Do you know what I would do for you? I hope not. What would I not do, is the question. The universe careens around us and I shield your sleeping body with my arms, ready to proclaim to the heavens that I would kill for you: that I would kill others for you, that I would kill myself. I would even kill my husband if it came down to it. I swear every woman in my position feels the same.”
There were times she said it so well. 3.5 rounded down.
This book has been on my reading table for far too long. I also had the audio from Libby 2x and finally two days before its auto-return I decided to pick it up. My hesitation was due to what I had heard about its subject and my own tolerance or lack of at this point in my life. A little about me. I spent over 30 years helping women in pregnancy and delivery. I delivered babies at home, in hospitals (mostly) and in birth centers. I listened to women describe their expectations for the coming birth and often how unrealistically they pictured what motherhood would be. I've been retired now almost 8 years. My tolerance for complaints about all the work of mothering and how difficult and unappreciated the daily work of motherhood is, is extremely low.
That is what this book is in a nutshell. A young woman complaining about all the work of being a stay at home Mother to her first child and how little help or understanding she gets from her spouse. There are some really beautiful passages and Kilroy writes an exceptional novel. It does give a detailed description of how difficult, time consuming, and sleep deprived the early years can be. Also some moments of great insight.
But there were too many times I wanted to shake this mother and say, "What were you expecting? Didn't you know your spouse before going in? If you are so unhappy with this part of your life, there are solutions. What might you do to help yourself besides complain."
I felt sorry for not being more empathetic but motherhood is difficult and will also often be the greatest joy in your life--too soon over. The book could have used more of that joy rather than so much of the difficulty. A child is love beyond imagining until you do it.
“Do you know what I would do for you? I hope not. What would I not do, is the question. The universe careens around us and I shield your sleeping body with my arms, ready to proclaim to the heavens that I would kill for you: that I would kill others for you, that I would kill myself. I would even kill my husband if it came down to it. I swear every woman in my position feels the same.”
There were times she said it so well. 3.5 rounded down.
September 18, 2023
Perhaps the most honest piece of fiction I've read in a long time. I'm not a mother but I felt every line on every page, a testament to how skilled Kilroy is as a writer. Definitely my favourite book of 2023 so far. God, I'm so salty that this didn't make the Booker longlist.
November 21, 2023
This novel as the image depicts, zooms right in to the responsibility, the bond and the practice of being mother to a small child, to how it changes EVERYTHING. To the entering in to a relationship like no other and the loss of what was, the very different support that a mother needs and the unlikely place(s) she might find it.
It is not a reflection, it is an act, you will read it and live it, or relive it, if you've already been there.
It swings between the emotional peaks of tireless love to violent resentment, from 2 second insta snaps to 30 second screaming rages, only the reader witness to the riding crescendo of events that lead from one of those things to the next. A bewildered husband, only observing the peaks.
To read this account, especially because of the culture within which it stems from, one that for many years locked up its women who expressed too loudly their discontent, is to understand a little of that which was previously called hysteria, which is perhaps an ordinary consequence of needs not being met, where the mother like her infant child, is reborn and only realises this when it is too late, when this tiny creature she so fiercely loves and will protect,claims here and in her most challenging moments, she like him, feels the need to scream and escape and somehow figure out, how to make 'the other' understand.
This text will not speak of the quiet moments, it is the intersection of all the moments lives, of the brutal awakening that is 'becoming a mother' and the warning to 'the other' that did not give birth, but who is part of the journey, to prepare for this change and get ready to adapt, to support, to listen, to learn to be 'the friend' she is going to need.
We arrive at the end - where she imagines moments years down the road ahead - with a kind of relief, knowing that with age and stage, the distance between those peaks will lessen, the relationships will either adapt or crumble, that true friendships will witness and endure it all.
It is not a reflection, it is an act, you will read it and live it, or relive it, if you've already been there.
It swings between the emotional peaks of tireless love to violent resentment, from 2 second insta snaps to 30 second screaming rages, only the reader witness to the riding crescendo of events that lead from one of those things to the next. A bewildered husband, only observing the peaks.
To read this account, especially because of the culture within which it stems from, one that for many years locked up its women who expressed too loudly their discontent, is to understand a little of that which was previously called hysteria, which is perhaps an ordinary consequence of needs not being met, where the mother like her infant child, is reborn and only realises this when it is too late, when this tiny creature she so fiercely loves and will protect,claims here and in her most challenging moments, she like him, feels the need to scream and escape and somehow figure out, how to make 'the other' understand.
This text will not speak of the quiet moments, it is the intersection of all the moments lives, of the brutal awakening that is 'becoming a mother' and the warning to 'the other' that did not give birth, but who is part of the journey, to prepare for this change and get ready to adapt, to support, to listen, to learn to be 'the friend' she is going to need.
We arrive at the end - where she imagines moments years down the road ahead - with a kind of relief, knowing that with age and stage, the distance between those peaks will lessen, the relationships will either adapt or crumble, that true friendships will witness and endure it all.
June 10, 2024
3.5/5
Claire Kilroy’dan da romandan da “Woman’s Prize” sayesinde haberim oldu. Yazar bu romanında anne olmanın nasıl bir şey didik didik ediyor. İlk andan itibaren çocuğa dair gelişen kaygılar, bakım sorumluluğu, uykusuz geceler, bir yandan da evin sorumluluğu vs. derken anne olan kadının hayatının nasıl tamamen değiştiğini görüyoruz. Babanın (kocanın) ilgisizliği, adeta tek yaşıyormuş gibi hiçbir konuda sorumluluk almayışı, arada oluşan kocaman boşlukla annenin nasıl yalnızlaştığına da tanık oluyoruz. Başka bir deyişle annelik evliliğindeki sorunları ortaya seriyor. Bir noktada anlatıcıya dair şüphe de duymaya başlıyoruz ki bu kısmını özellikle sevdim. Yani tüm bu olanlar doğum sonrası sendromu yaşayan bir annenin bunalımı mı gerçek mi konusunda arada bırakıyor yazar bizi. Son bölümdeyse tüm bu “kaygının” kaynağını da gösteriyor bize. Özellikle o kısım çok şefkat dolu. Bu da başka bir boyut ekliyor romana. Özetlersem kuşkusuz iyi yazılmış bir metin ama çok etkilendim mi, etkilenmedim doğrusu. Bunun başlıca sebebi de yeni bir şey söylememesi yazarın. Anneliğe dair başka metinlerde olan her ne varsa burada da o var. Bu da ister istemez tatmin edicilikten alıp götürüyor.
Claire Kilroy’dan da romandan da “Woman’s Prize” sayesinde haberim oldu. Yazar bu romanında anne olmanın nasıl bir şey didik didik ediyor. İlk andan itibaren çocuğa dair gelişen kaygılar, bakım sorumluluğu, uykusuz geceler, bir yandan da evin sorumluluğu vs. derken anne olan kadının hayatının nasıl tamamen değiştiğini görüyoruz. Babanın (kocanın) ilgisizliği, adeta tek yaşıyormuş gibi hiçbir konuda sorumluluk almayışı, arada oluşan kocaman boşlukla annenin nasıl yalnızlaştığına da tanık oluyoruz. Başka bir deyişle annelik evliliğindeki sorunları ortaya seriyor. Bir noktada anlatıcıya dair şüphe de duymaya başlıyoruz ki bu kısmını özellikle sevdim. Yani tüm bu olanlar doğum sonrası sendromu yaşayan bir annenin bunalımı mı gerçek mi konusunda arada bırakıyor yazar bizi. Son bölümdeyse tüm bu “kaygının” kaynağını da gösteriyor bize. Özellikle o kısım çok şefkat dolu. Bu da başka bir boyut ekliyor romana. Özetlersem kuşkusuz iyi yazılmış bir metin ama çok etkilendim mi, etkilenmedim doğrusu. Bunun başlıca sebebi de yeni bir şey söylememesi yazarın. Anneliğe dair başka metinlerde olan her ne varsa burada da o var. Bu da ister istemez tatmin edicilikten alıp götürüyor.
April 8, 2024
It sounds like lots of people like this book. I didn't. I read some reviews after putting this down, and I really wonder if many of them actually read the whole book or have raised a child themselves.
The main character is unreliable and she suffers from a horrible case of Postpartum depression (PPD). She has a cardboard cut-out husband, so cliche that its boring. I mean seriously, not a developed character at all. The narrator falls into the habit of generalizing her husband with every other man alive, the "all men are bad" trope is sloppy and maybe its sloppy because the main character's thoughts are "sloppy" due to her lack of sleep and shitty spouse, but it grates. The story is familiar, you've read it before. You've watched movies on this topic before. Its been done. The writing is fine but there is no humor or variety in the story. She is depressed, alone, unsupported and it sucks for her. She is also seriously unreliable so her point of view is sus. If you want page after page of that, or maybe this topic is new and fresh to you somehow, then maybe you will find something in this book making it worth reading.
I rarely DNF books but this one was boring, bleak and, as a story, far too familiar. The author didn't even hint at anything better to come in the second half. The first half felt like a single note being played over and over and with no characters that were likable... DNF near halfway point.
Not recommended. Not a good use of my reading time. Avoid.
The main character is unreliable and she suffers from a horrible case of Postpartum depression (PPD). She has a cardboard cut-out husband, so cliche that its boring. I mean seriously, not a developed character at all. The narrator falls into the habit of generalizing her husband with every other man alive, the "all men are bad" trope is sloppy and maybe its sloppy because the main character's thoughts are "sloppy" due to her lack of sleep and shitty spouse, but it grates. The story is familiar, you've read it before. You've watched movies on this topic before. Its been done. The writing is fine but there is no humor or variety in the story. She is depressed, alone, unsupported and it sucks for her. She is also seriously unreliable so her point of view is sus. If you want page after page of that, or maybe this topic is new and fresh to you somehow, then maybe you will find something in this book making it worth reading.
I rarely DNF books but this one was boring, bleak and, as a story, far too familiar. The author didn't even hint at anything better to come in the second half. The first half felt like a single note being played over and over and with no characters that were likable... DNF near halfway point.
Not recommended. Not a good use of my reading time. Avoid.
March 20, 2024
Well, what a beautiful book. But not only that. It's also a book that put my hackles up early on. A narrator I never quite trusted. I felt shocked, moved, offended, warmed. I felt empathy, so much empathy. I wanted to cry, 'But not me! She's not talking about me!'
This is not an easy read for a man, a husband, a father. But just listen, really listen, because we need to hear it all.
This is not an easy read for a man, a husband, a father. But just listen, really listen, because we need to hear it all.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
June 30, 2024What can I say: I’m the only person on the planet who wasn’t beguiled by this. I was so bored by page 29 that I put it down. You couldn’t pay me to pick it back up again.
June 1, 2024
This book is not for me. I say that a lot in reviews when I can see objectively that I'm reading something good but it hasn't quite clicked; in the case of Soldier Sailor, Claire Kilroy's fifth novel, it's even more deeply true. Every page, not for me, not speaking to me. Soldier Sailor is about early motherhood. We follow the stream-of-consciousness of a new mother, Soldier, as she addresses her beloved son, Sailor. The material here is familiar to anyone who's ever read a Mumsnet thread: how marriages that once felt equal collapse into familiar patriarchal norms after a child is born, and Daddy is still free to do what he wants while Mummy is now expected only to care and serve ('He had a big day ahead but I only had little days', our narrator says bitterly). Kilroy, for my money, is strongest when writing about the upending nature of maternal love, the sheer otherworldly intensity of how much Soldier loves Sailor and how the world somehow makes this normal when it's anything but. 'I would kill for you... I would kill others for you, I would even kill myself. I would even kill my husband if it came down to it.' Soldier returns obsessively to this theme, desperate to tell us about this kind of love: 'I had wanted to know who [my husband] would save if there was a fire... "you can only save one of us and it has to be our baby"... I knew I would leave my husband behind in the fire, I would leave him to burn'.
Kilroy totally achieves what she sets out to do: in particular, the sequences in the forest and the beach, when our narrator temporarily loses her grip on reality, are both moving and technically brilliant. Unfortunately, for me, what she sets out to do just isn't that interesting. I've read so many books that do it already. In particular, I felt aggrieved on behalf of Sarah Moss's Night Waking, which is about simultaneously mothering an insomniac toddler and paranoid eight-year-old, and which is funnier and sharper than Soldier Sailor. I also - this book is not for me - started to feel beaten over the head with how much our narrator wants to tell us that men and women are Just Different. Soldier doesn't understand wine, mechanics, why people care about cars; walking in the dark always makes her scared; she's pissed off at her husband for his total obliviousness, but does nothing about it. Why doesn't she leave him? Unlike Moss's Night Waking, which is good on the deep unspoken sexual bond between Anna and her husband, we barely get a glimpse of what drew these two to each other in the first place. And the trouble is, the more we're told how Different men and women are, the more Soldier's situation starts to feel inevitable, rather than oppressive.
One of the most beautiful and resonant passages in this book is near the end, on the beach:
That night I made another grave error of judgement. I tried to save a girl who had drowned some years ago, bladderwrack tangled in her hair. She drowned before you were born, seconds before you were born, as she brought you into this world... That girl, you'd have liked her, but I left her for dead. Had to. This was a woman's job.
As well as this works in the context of Soldier's journey, however, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth, because it returns to the old story that it's only by having children that women really grow up. This myth of motherhood is especially persistent, I think, because some parents compare their pre-child selves to their post-child selves and think, ah, I am much more of an adult now. The problem is that, even though I don't have children, I am not the same self I was in my twenties; I have changed too. Interestingly, I can see it in my own responses to Night Waking, which I first read in my early twenties, when I thought I wanted kids in the future. In my first review of the novel, I found Anna's relationship with her children a bit disturbing, because she is so emotionally honest ("Good morning," said the Tiger [Who Came To Tea]. "I'm here to symbolise the danger and excitement that is missing from your life of mindless domesticity"'). When I re-read it in my early thirties, I was cheering Anna on, having gained a much greater appreciation of the emotional labour of care work ('"Mummy stop it raining", "I can’t stop it raining. Believe me, if I had supernatural powers the world would be a very different place."') I too am a woman, no longer a girl.
This speaks to the wider literary climate that may not have created Soldier Sailor but which has certainly contributed to the many accolades it has received: the idea that these stories of motherhood are still untold. If these books continue to resonate with so many readers, of course they deserve to exist. But it's interesting that there seems to be a sense that women without children have had their turn and now we need to hear from mothers. Indeed, most women in fiction do not have children, but this is not because they are childless or childfree, but because they haven't had children yet. Fiction is still obsessed with the coming-of-age and the young. Many writers have noted how this shafts middle-aged and older women, but there's a particular cost here for the one in five women who never have children. The stories of women without children past childbearing age are just not getting told. Navigating this new era of life without experiencing the sudden 'drowning' of motherhood but still, knowing that the seas have changed, feels increasingly like sailing uncharted waters.
3.5 stars
Kilroy totally achieves what she sets out to do: in particular, the sequences in the forest and the beach, when our narrator temporarily loses her grip on reality, are both moving and technically brilliant. Unfortunately, for me, what she sets out to do just isn't that interesting. I've read so many books that do it already. In particular, I felt aggrieved on behalf of Sarah Moss's Night Waking, which is about simultaneously mothering an insomniac toddler and paranoid eight-year-old, and which is funnier and sharper than Soldier Sailor. I also - this book is not for me - started to feel beaten over the head with how much our narrator wants to tell us that men and women are Just Different. Soldier doesn't understand wine, mechanics, why people care about cars; walking in the dark always makes her scared; she's pissed off at her husband for his total obliviousness, but does nothing about it. Why doesn't she leave him? Unlike Moss's Night Waking, which is good on the deep unspoken sexual bond between Anna and her husband, we barely get a glimpse of what drew these two to each other in the first place. And the trouble is, the more we're told how Different men and women are, the more Soldier's situation starts to feel inevitable, rather than oppressive.
One of the most beautiful and resonant passages in this book is near the end, on the beach:
That night I made another grave error of judgement. I tried to save a girl who had drowned some years ago, bladderwrack tangled in her hair. She drowned before you were born, seconds before you were born, as she brought you into this world... That girl, you'd have liked her, but I left her for dead. Had to. This was a woman's job.
As well as this works in the context of Soldier's journey, however, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth, because it returns to the old story that it's only by having children that women really grow up. This myth of motherhood is especially persistent, I think, because some parents compare their pre-child selves to their post-child selves and think, ah, I am much more of an adult now. The problem is that, even though I don't have children, I am not the same self I was in my twenties; I have changed too. Interestingly, I can see it in my own responses to Night Waking, which I first read in my early twenties, when I thought I wanted kids in the future. In my first review of the novel, I found Anna's relationship with her children a bit disturbing, because she is so emotionally honest ("Good morning," said the Tiger [Who Came To Tea]. "I'm here to symbolise the danger and excitement that is missing from your life of mindless domesticity"'). When I re-read it in my early thirties, I was cheering Anna on, having gained a much greater appreciation of the emotional labour of care work ('"Mummy stop it raining", "I can’t stop it raining. Believe me, if I had supernatural powers the world would be a very different place."') I too am a woman, no longer a girl.
This speaks to the wider literary climate that may not have created Soldier Sailor but which has certainly contributed to the many accolades it has received: the idea that these stories of motherhood are still untold. If these books continue to resonate with so many readers, of course they deserve to exist. But it's interesting that there seems to be a sense that women without children have had their turn and now we need to hear from mothers. Indeed, most women in fiction do not have children, but this is not because they are childless or childfree, but because they haven't had children yet. Fiction is still obsessed with the coming-of-age and the young. Many writers have noted how this shafts middle-aged and older women, but there's a particular cost here for the one in five women who never have children. The stories of women without children past childbearing age are just not getting told. Navigating this new era of life without experiencing the sudden 'drowning' of motherhood but still, knowing that the seas have changed, feels increasingly like sailing uncharted waters.
3.5 stars
July 4, 2023
Voice is so important to me in deciding whether I like a book or not. I’m less fussy about structure, plot and even characterisation because the authorial voice can often carry those. It’s the author’s writing style I’m most keenly interested in. It needs to have personality, it needs to “grab” me, say something new and make me want to keep turning the pages.
Soldier Sailor, the new novel by Irish writer Claire Kilroy, is all about voice. And what a voice it is!
It’s urgent, powerful and almost dizzying in its ability to disorientate the reader. Sometimes it’s hard to determine if the narrator is sane or maybe just has a vivid imagination. Is she reliable? Or is she just venting?
The story, which is told in the second person, is framed around a mother addressing her four-year-old son, Sailor, hence the title. (The mother is the soldier, in the sense that she is “soldiering on”.)
Soldier Sailor is about motherhood and the loss of self (or identity) when a woman has a baby and sheds her old life to become a parent. Kilroy exposes the intensity and bittersweet emotions this can generate.
Her narrator is confused, furious, upset, loving and tender — often all at the same time — as she rails against the all-consuming nature of her new role.
Throughout, there’s a strong focus on double standards and the ways in which the narrator feels crushed by the inequality she experiences as everything in her life changes while her husband’s life continues along as per normal.
Because of the story’s structure, we never hear the husband’s point of view, but he comes across (via the protagonist’s biased and anger-fuelled perspective) as unsympathetic, selfish and pig-headed. And on the rare occasions when he does try to help, he does it “wrong”, is berated by his wife and so stops offering to help. It’s a vicious cycle.
Our harried mother finds solace in her friendship with an old school friend, a stay-at-home dad she meets in the park, for here is another parent, struggling with domestic life and lonely for adult company, with whom she can unburden herself and share her doubts and fears.
While Soldier Sailor traverses some dark and dangerous territory, there’s a rich vein of black humour to cut through the suspense that builds from the first page.
I ate up this book in two greedy gulps because I simply had to find out what would happen next.
Kilroy achieves this sense of urgency by tapping into our darkest fears and using the “rules” of the best psychological thrillers to get us invested in the people she writes about. I feared for both the mother and the child, worried some terrible fate was going to befall at least one of them, and by the time I got to the end I felt emotionally wrung out. It’s a brilliantly intense read.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.
Soldier Sailor, the new novel by Irish writer Claire Kilroy, is all about voice. And what a voice it is!
It’s urgent, powerful and almost dizzying in its ability to disorientate the reader. Sometimes it’s hard to determine if the narrator is sane or maybe just has a vivid imagination. Is she reliable? Or is she just venting?
The story, which is told in the second person, is framed around a mother addressing her four-year-old son, Sailor, hence the title. (The mother is the soldier, in the sense that she is “soldiering on”.)
Soldier Sailor is about motherhood and the loss of self (or identity) when a woman has a baby and sheds her old life to become a parent. Kilroy exposes the intensity and bittersweet emotions this can generate.
Her narrator is confused, furious, upset, loving and tender — often all at the same time — as she rails against the all-consuming nature of her new role.
Throughout, there’s a strong focus on double standards and the ways in which the narrator feels crushed by the inequality she experiences as everything in her life changes while her husband’s life continues along as per normal.
Because of the story’s structure, we never hear the husband’s point of view, but he comes across (via the protagonist’s biased and anger-fuelled perspective) as unsympathetic, selfish and pig-headed. And on the rare occasions when he does try to help, he does it “wrong”, is berated by his wife and so stops offering to help. It’s a vicious cycle.
Our harried mother finds solace in her friendship with an old school friend, a stay-at-home dad she meets in the park, for here is another parent, struggling with domestic life and lonely for adult company, with whom she can unburden herself and share her doubts and fears.
While Soldier Sailor traverses some dark and dangerous territory, there’s a rich vein of black humour to cut through the suspense that builds from the first page.
I ate up this book in two greedy gulps because I simply had to find out what would happen next.
Kilroy achieves this sense of urgency by tapping into our darkest fears and using the “rules” of the best psychological thrillers to get us invested in the people she writes about. I feared for both the mother and the child, worried some terrible fate was going to befall at least one of them, and by the time I got to the end I felt emotionally wrung out. It’s a brilliantly intense read.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.
April 17, 2023
Terrible cover, exquisite book - my favourite of all I have read so far this year.
June 9, 2024
Roman toka svesti jedine... mamike? Čudnovati križanac između Virdžinije Vulf i Blic Žene? Evo, stvarno ne mogu i dalje da se odlučim. Odavno nisam pročitala LEPŠE napisanu knjigu, zaista (autorkino vladanje jezikom je neosporivo). A koja dotiče teme koje meni, kao osobi bez dece, deluju poprilično... Nepristupačno. Knjiga o odnosu majke, u tekstu Soldier, i njenog sina, u tesktu Sailor. Njene svakodnevne borbe - neispavanost, očaj što je dete manje i mršavije od okoline (kako ga naterati da jede povrće!), da li je obična temperatura prouzrokovana virusom ili mali umire od meningitisa, zapostavljenost sebe na fizičkom, psihičkom i duhovnom planu, da li će je dete mrzeti kad odraste, vrištanje na partnera tokom kupovine dečijeg kreveta u IKEI; mada i taj partner u tekstu i nije partner, više bi se mogao nazvati donorom sperme (večito odsutan, beži od odgovornosti na posao, previše kritičan, ne bavi se detetom, jedino redovno pita "a šta je za večeru"). Ima tu i izraza majčinske ljubavi, zaista nežnih delova (dečije otkrivanje sveta oko sebe, ipak je on Sailor)... Ali, opet, zar mora toliko mučno sve da bude?
Ja sam u ranim tridesetim. Posmatrajući svoju okolinu, u godinama ili kad počnu da imaju decu, ili da zloupotrebljavaju supstance, ili da treniraju za maratone. Bez četvrte opcije, haha. I do sada sam bila ubeđena da svako ko želi decu ima potencijal da bude solidan, dovoljno dobar roditelj. Naravno, nesavršen. Bez previše mozganja, instinktivno. I da valjda treba izvući neko zadovoljstvo iz posmatranja i praćenja tog malenog bića koje se razvija uz nas?
Ja sam u ranim tridesetim. Posmatrajući svoju okolinu, u godinama ili kad počnu da imaju decu, ili da zloupotrebljavaju supstance, ili da treniraju za maratone. Bez četvrte opcije, haha. I do sada sam bila ubeđena da svako ko želi decu ima potencijal da bude solidan, dovoljno dobar roditelj. Naravno, nesavršen. Bez previše mozganja, instinktivno. I da valjda treba izvući neko zadovoljstvo iz posmatranja i praćenja tog malenog bića koje se razvija uz nas?
February 22, 2024
A brutal, clear eyed look at early motherhood and a truly terrible depressingly awful marriage. I was here for the prose and voice and Kilroy delivered strongly on both. I suspect readers who are also mothers, especially of boys, will get more from the subject matter than I did. That anyone reads these books and then has children is wild to me though I suspect the readership is more mothers hungry to see their experiences on the page (something they will find here). It’s a slip of a novel but parts of it will haunt me forever.
June 24, 2024
(3.5) The wry voice and direct address to the child saved this from being too mawkish (except in the last 15 pages or so) or familiar. All the same, the content is repetitive, with example after example of how the boy's father is useless and leaves everything about his care to her, and of how difficult it is to cope with the simplest of setbacks when there's a screaming toddler clinging to you.
There's a deliberately claustrophobic nature to the setup as the only glimpse we get of life outside the family is when she meets an old friend at the playground. But that's only because he's a stay-at-home dad to three, so they're in the same situation. You almost root for them to start an affair (they deserve some fun, after all), but how on earth would they manage that with four small kids between them?
The Ikea scene was by far the standout for me. I'm sure this has been resonating especially with mothers of young children (or older children but who remember the frantic helplessness of those days), but even for the childfree like me it's a valuable window onto a subset of life experiences.
There's a deliberately claustrophobic nature to the setup as the only glimpse we get of life outside the family is when she meets an old friend at the playground. But that's only because he's a stay-at-home dad to three, so they're in the same situation. You almost root for them to start an affair (they deserve some fun, after all), but how on earth would they manage that with four small kids between them?
The Ikea scene was by far the standout for me. I'm sure this has been resonating especially with mothers of young children (or older children but who remember the frantic helplessness of those days), but even for the childfree like me it's a valuable window onto a subset of life experiences.
April 19, 2024
Soldier Sailor is an intense, raw and frankly dark rant on the blurry days of early motherhood that felt over the top. I'm a mom and experienced many the feelings depicted in Soldier Sailor, but if felt that the narrator is experiencing feelings beyond exhaustion and adjustment. This is the story of post partum depression or post partum anxiety yet it's not addressed. Why?
I lost steam quickly and should have DNFed this one but soldiered on to see if I was missing something. It was repetitive and lacking in any joy. I'll admit that books that explore motherhood aren't my favourite, but Soldier Sailor dropped the ball on the mental health aspect and aside from that didn't add anything to the conversation. I would recommend Chouette by Claire Oshetsky or And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott.
But . . . the writing here is top notch and I appreciated the exploration of the lose of identity experienced by new moms and the commentary on the inequality of parenthood.
I lost steam quickly and should have DNFed this one but soldiered on to see if I was missing something. It was repetitive and lacking in any joy. I'll admit that books that explore motherhood aren't my favourite, but Soldier Sailor dropped the ball on the mental health aspect and aside from that didn't add anything to the conversation. I would recommend Chouette by Claire Oshetsky or And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott.
But . . . the writing here is top notch and I appreciated the exploration of the lose of identity experienced by new moms and the commentary on the inequality of parenthood.
April 6, 2024
Wow. Anyone who is or has a mother should read this.
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