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Soldier Sailor
Win a free print copy of this book!
14 days and 03:43:25
10 copies available
U.S. only
In her first novel in over a decade, Claire Kilroy takes readers deep into the early days of motherhood. Exploring the clash of fierce love with a seismic shift in identity, Kilroy conjures the raw, tumultuous emotions of a new mother, as her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of equality, autonomy, and creativity.
Soldier Sailor is a tale of boundless love and relentless battle, a mother’s bedtime story to her son, Sailor, recounting their early years together. Caught in the grip of her toddler’s seemingly endless terrible twos, Soldier doesn’t know who she is anymore. She spends her days in baby groups, playgrounds, and supermarkets. She hardly sees her husband, who has taken to working late most nights. A chance encounter with a former colleague feels like a lifeline to the person she used to be.
Tender and harrowing, Kilroy’s modern masterpiece portrays parenthood in all its agony and ardent joy.
Soldier Sailor is a tale of boundless love and relentless battle, a mother’s bedtime story to her son, Sailor, recounting their early years together. Caught in the grip of her toddler’s seemingly endless terrible twos, Soldier doesn’t know who she is anymore. She spends her days in baby groups, playgrounds, and supermarkets. She hardly sees her husband, who has taken to working late most nights. A chance encounter with a former colleague feels like a lifeline to the person she used to be.
Tender and harrowing, Kilroy’s modern masterpiece portrays parenthood in all its agony and ardent joy.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 2, 2023
About the author
Claire Kilroy
5 books82 followersClaire Kilroy was born in 1973 in Dublin, Ireland and was educated at Trinity College. In 2002 she received an Arts Council Literature Award. Her first novel, ALL SUMMER (Faber, 2003), was the recipient of the 2004 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and was short-listed for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and her most recent novel, TENDERWIRE (Faber, 2006), was shortlisted for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel Award. She lives in Dublin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 249 reviews
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.
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"
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
May 16, 2023
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 attempt to uplift a woman, or critiques of 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 attempt to uplift a woman, or critiques of 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.
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.
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.
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.
October 4, 2023
How many novels and how many works of non fiction have been written by women describing, reflecting, and making sense of childbirth? The change to the woman, now mother; the mental battle as joy, and unbridled love, fight with the enormity of the immediate life change. Exhaustion, unremitting responsibility, physical pain and body transformation; all experienced under the huge strain of sleep deprivation like you’ve never imagined.
This really is a woman’s world, and notwithstanding that men, in general, are nowadays much more engaged in the bringing and nurturing of new life, both before and after the event, this is the life change that, more than any other, determines the difference between the sexes.
Claire Kilroy has written a most stunning heartfelt paean to new life, the newly born. It’s often difficult to fully engage with a writer’s description of lived experience unless you have experienced the same thing yourself, and can measure the intensity and integrity of the description. In the case of Soldier Sailor I do believe I was truly engaged.
The novel concerns the post-partum depression of a new, young mother. Her husband is devoid of proper empathy and understanding. She seems to have few, if any, close friends, or supportive family members. The increasingly wilful infant doesn’t follow the supposed script (there isn’t one) and the resistance to eating, and staying quiet, and sleeping is a daily and weekly, and nightly occurrence.
For the first nine tenths of the book this makes for very uncomfortable reading. As a man, I winced and cringed as the narrator became more desperate, and more alone.
Then the final thirty pages.
Kilroy’s writing style- her choice of beautiful words, the intensity and beauty of description of love for another person, for ever, for their whole life, was truly uplifting. I suspect that the beauty of the finale was all the greater because it marked such a contrast with the unremitting sense of despair that preceded it.
“Valerian, campion, speedwell, vetch. There are gentle things in this world. Gentle but resilient. Be one of them“
This is an exceptionally heartfelt, and beautifully written novel.
This really is a woman’s world, and notwithstanding that men, in general, are nowadays much more engaged in the bringing and nurturing of new life, both before and after the event, this is the life change that, more than any other, determines the difference between the sexes.
Claire Kilroy has written a most stunning heartfelt paean to new life, the newly born. It’s often difficult to fully engage with a writer’s description of lived experience unless you have experienced the same thing yourself, and can measure the intensity and integrity of the description. In the case of Soldier Sailor I do believe I was truly engaged.
The novel concerns the post-partum depression of a new, young mother. Her husband is devoid of proper empathy and understanding. She seems to have few, if any, close friends, or supportive family members. The increasingly wilful infant doesn’t follow the supposed script (there isn’t one) and the resistance to eating, and staying quiet, and sleeping is a daily and weekly, and nightly occurrence.
For the first nine tenths of the book this makes for very uncomfortable reading. As a man, I winced and cringed as the narrator became more desperate, and more alone.
Then the final thirty pages.
Kilroy’s writing style- her choice of beautiful words, the intensity and beauty of description of love for another person, for ever, for their whole life, was truly uplifting. I suspect that the beauty of the finale was all the greater because it marked such a contrast with the unremitting sense of despair that preceded it.
“Valerian, campion, speedwell, vetch. There are gentle things in this world. Gentle but resilient. Be one of them“
This is an exceptionally heartfelt, and beautifully written novel.
December 29, 2023
“She was mother for that” - me whenever the main character did or said anything
March 11, 2024
Doświadczenie pierwszego macierzyństwa - sporo książek na ten temat już powstało, z różnych perspektyw, również z tych mniej kolorowych, ale jest w 'Soldier Sailor' pewna świeżość i poczucie solidarności w tym, jak Kilroy opisuje gorący styk różnych uczuć, emocji i stanów, na tle mikro-rzeczywistości mamy z dzieckiem zestawionej z rzeczywistością w skali makro - mężem, otoczeniem, społeczeństwem. Nieduża książka, której przestrzeń wypełniona została po brzegi treścią i emocjami. Nie mogłam się oderwać.
December 15, 2023
I read this for next week's bookclub and I have no intellectual thoughts whatsoever, it grabbed me from the first page onwards and I am left a bawling mess by the end of it. I feel like Killroy manages the slippery slope between being simultaneously very specific and utterly universal perfectly and this balance as well as the brutal honesty and the palpability and rawness of emotions make this novel so extraordinary. I also REALLY hate her husband.
I feel inclined to give a 4/5 star rating and I can't really pinpoint why it's not a 5-star novel for me. Might be wiser after the bookclub session.
I feel inclined to give a 4/5 star rating and I can't really pinpoint why it's not a 5-star novel for me. Might be wiser after the bookclub session.
September 12, 2023
“Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another’s arms”
This is a very personal letter of love from a mother "Soldier" to her son, who she calls "Sailor". Narrated in the first person the reader is swept along through the early years of motherhood, the sleepless nights, the overwhelming exhaustion, the fear and trepidation. The all consuming life changes. Alongside of the narrator is her husband - the man who responds to texts about their son with smiley face emojis and who, according to Soldier, is totally unable, or unwilling to contribute in any more meaningful way, as he advances his career.
I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. And like so many other readers who follow the Booker prize I too join the chorus - WHY was this novel not a longlisted? Highly recommended
This is a very personal letter of love from a mother "Soldier" to her son, who she calls "Sailor". Narrated in the first person the reader is swept along through the early years of motherhood, the sleepless nights, the overwhelming exhaustion, the fear and trepidation. The all consuming life changes. Alongside of the narrator is her husband - the man who responds to texts about their son with smiley face emojis and who, according to Soldier, is totally unable, or unwilling to contribute in any more meaningful way, as he advances his career.
I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. And like so many other readers who follow the Booker prize I too join the chorus - WHY was this novel not a longlisted? Highly recommended
March 10, 2024
This book made my blood boil. It broke my heart and made it swell to bursting.
July 28, 2023
Soldier, Sailor is by Irish writer Claire Kilroy and I have to say this is probably my most favourite of all the Booker eligible books I’ve read recently.
How to sum this up? Brilliant, just brilliant! I loved this book so much. As a mother it was so utterly relatable. The intensity and relentlessness of the early days of motherhood was perfectly captured. The dark thoughts, the exhaustion, the loneliness, the feeling of being lost in a new role that is much more consuming than you expected it to be.
Written in second person from the voice of Soldier, a woman deep in the trenches of motherhood, to her baby boy Sailor. These are of course nicknames but they evoke some interesting themes. They form part of the old nursery rhyme – tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. Soldier also implies that the mother is doing battle all day every day and this definitely came across.
Speaking directly to her child makes this feel like an intimate love letter, one that also brings to mind a constant inner monologue which certainly related strongly for me. I recall being at home with a baby and spending my days talking directly at them either out loud or in your head!
It had me remembering the utter loneliness of mothering a newborn and emphasising with Soldier’s love, fears and anger. The rage that she felt at her husband and his ability to leave and go to work and his inability to "help" care for his son. Wowsers!
In many ways not too much happens plot wise we simply hear Soldier’s thoughts about the early years of her son's life but this book never stops being engaging. In fact despite what could have been some heavy themes there’s a lightness and humour to parts of this. Although having said that it is also a very well done examination of motherhood within the context of patriarchy.
Honestly, this will definitely be on my favourites stack at the end of the year and I really really hope it is on the Booker longlist so more people can experience this! 10 out 10 recommend!
Thank you so much @allenandunwin for my #gifted copy.
How to sum this up? Brilliant, just brilliant! I loved this book so much. As a mother it was so utterly relatable. The intensity and relentlessness of the early days of motherhood was perfectly captured. The dark thoughts, the exhaustion, the loneliness, the feeling of being lost in a new role that is much more consuming than you expected it to be.
Written in second person from the voice of Soldier, a woman deep in the trenches of motherhood, to her baby boy Sailor. These are of course nicknames but they evoke some interesting themes. They form part of the old nursery rhyme – tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. Soldier also implies that the mother is doing battle all day every day and this definitely came across.
Speaking directly to her child makes this feel like an intimate love letter, one that also brings to mind a constant inner monologue which certainly related strongly for me. I recall being at home with a baby and spending my days talking directly at them either out loud or in your head!
It had me remembering the utter loneliness of mothering a newborn and emphasising with Soldier’s love, fears and anger. The rage that she felt at her husband and his ability to leave and go to work and his inability to "help" care for his son. Wowsers!
In many ways not too much happens plot wise we simply hear Soldier’s thoughts about the early years of her son's life but this book never stops being engaging. In fact despite what could have been some heavy themes there’s a lightness and humour to parts of this. Although having said that it is also a very well done examination of motherhood within the context of patriarchy.
Honestly, this will definitely be on my favourites stack at the end of the year and I really really hope it is on the Booker longlist so more people can experience this! 10 out 10 recommend!
Thank you so much @allenandunwin for my #gifted copy.
Read
October 24, 2023It takes a village to raise a child. But what happens to a woman when she is raising her child alone in the early most difficult years, even though she is married? That is, in short, what this story is about. The agony, frustration, and lack of sleep make a mother rethink her life. She questions her husband and, most of all, questions herself.
''Soldier Sailor'' immediately pulls you into the story as it reads like a letter from a mother to her son. The narrative unfolds through the perspective of a woman named Soldier, who addresses her infant son, Sailor. Parenthood has utterly consumed her, and she's dealing with immense challenges. The daily grind and lack of sleep are wearing her down – the cleaning after her son, the meal preparation, and the seemingly endless cycle of diaper changes. She also describes a few significant incidents involving her child, such as his disappearance in an IKEA store, the time he injures himself, resulting in a sizable bruise on his head, and a harrowing late-night fever, during which she struggles to reach a doctor while her husband continues sleeping. It's no surprise that she's nearing her breaking point. Especially since her husband proves to be utterly inept at parenting, hiding behind his work as that is his contribution to the family. All this leads to deep-seated resentment and constant arguments between them. Amidst this turmoil, her one source of solace is a childhood friend who visits the same playground with his kids, allowing them to reminisce about simpler times.
Since the story is narrated from a single perspective, it's inherently biased, causing some doubts regarding the mother's recollection of certain events. Nevertheless, the agony she endures is undeniable. The reader gets an intimate glimpse into the challenging aspects of motherhood, which, to be honest, is mostly negative. Although there are moments when love for her son threatens to overwhelm her. It is, however, the novel's final part that proves particularly poignant and beautiful.
I wish the beautiful ending of the book was sprinkled a little bit more throughout the story. But maybe that could be the whole point of the story. The beauty of raising a child comes as time passes?
She cherishes the prospect of sharing precious years with her child in the future before the ravages of age take their toll on both of them. But also with torment and wonder if her love for her son is worth the anguish.
It's not an uplifting book about parenting, but if this interests you, I recommend this raw and jarring read.
“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 think this tree that shelters you is unassailable, Sailor, but look again. Even on the stillest of days, every last leaf is trembling.”
“I am tired. I am lonely. I have found myself mired in resentment in this new life, become a person I don’t wish to be, feeling constant guilt for not feeling constant gratitude for the blessing that is my child. I do feel constant gratitude: I adore my child. But I am tired. I am lonely. I am lost.”
“To which your father said nothing. It was the way he said it, though.”
“Love is the most eccentric property I know of. Endangering it only serves to reinforce it.”
“In love there is always loss, Sailor. There is no way around this that I can find. There will be a last look. That last look may come sooner than you think. One of us will be left behind. These are the things you accept when you accept love into your life.”
''Soldier Sailor'' immediately pulls you into the story as it reads like a letter from a mother to her son. The narrative unfolds through the perspective of a woman named Soldier, who addresses her infant son, Sailor. Parenthood has utterly consumed her, and she's dealing with immense challenges. The daily grind and lack of sleep are wearing her down – the cleaning after her son, the meal preparation, and the seemingly endless cycle of diaper changes. She also describes a few significant incidents involving her child, such as his disappearance in an IKEA store, the time he injures himself, resulting in a sizable bruise on his head, and a harrowing late-night fever, during which she struggles to reach a doctor while her husband continues sleeping. It's no surprise that she's nearing her breaking point. Especially since her husband proves to be utterly inept at parenting, hiding behind his work as that is his contribution to the family. All this leads to deep-seated resentment and constant arguments between them. Amidst this turmoil, her one source of solace is a childhood friend who visits the same playground with his kids, allowing them to reminisce about simpler times.
Since the story is narrated from a single perspective, it's inherently biased, causing some doubts regarding the mother's recollection of certain events. Nevertheless, the agony she endures is undeniable. The reader gets an intimate glimpse into the challenging aspects of motherhood, which, to be honest, is mostly negative. Although there are moments when love for her son threatens to overwhelm her. It is, however, the novel's final part that proves particularly poignant and beautiful.
I wish the beautiful ending of the book was sprinkled a little bit more throughout the story. But maybe that could be the whole point of the story. The beauty of raising a child comes as time passes?
She cherishes the prospect of sharing precious years with her child in the future before the ravages of age take their toll on both of them. But also with torment and wonder if her love for her son is worth the anguish.
It's not an uplifting book about parenting, but if this interests you, I recommend this raw and jarring read.
“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 think this tree that shelters you is unassailable, Sailor, but look again. Even on the stillest of days, every last leaf is trembling.”
“I am tired. I am lonely. I have found myself mired in resentment in this new life, become a person I don’t wish to be, feeling constant guilt for not feeling constant gratitude for the blessing that is my child. I do feel constant gratitude: I adore my child. But I am tired. I am lonely. I am lost.”
“To which your father said nothing. It was the way he said it, though.”
“Love is the most eccentric property I know of. Endangering it only serves to reinforce it.”
“In love there is always loss, Sailor. There is no way around this that I can find. There will be a last look. That last look may come sooner than you think. One of us will be left behind. These are the things you accept when you accept love into your life.”
March 15, 2024
This book is essentially a mother’s love letter to her young son. She leaves nothing out, talking in particular about the difficulties and frustrations that come with being a stay-at-home mother. She explores the differences in expectations between mothers and fathers, the intensity of the bond between mother and child, and the agony of leaving behind one’s pre-parent self. She does all of this through gorgeous, poetic, concise prose that cuts right to the bone.
I am not a mother so I cannot fully relate to the narrator’s struggles, but in other ways I can: through watching my sister parent her three children, through thinking about my own mother’s experiences, through simply existing as a woman in the world. This is such a lovely and realistic picture of what motherhood so often looks and feels like. Four stars.
I am not a mother so I cannot fully relate to the narrator’s struggles, but in other ways I can: through watching my sister parent her three children, through thinking about my own mother’s experiences, through simply existing as a woman in the world. This is such a lovely and realistic picture of what motherhood so often looks and feels like. Four stars.
March 13, 2024
a searing, powerful look at motherhood - the intense, primal bond a mother forms with her child, and the desperate difficulties (and moments of solace and soaring hope) in raising a child - the opening scene / chapter is phenomenal
i did find certain scenes a little expected, and also in terms of writing, while there are moments of brilliance aplenty, there are some moments that feel a little overwritten / melodramatic idk
but very very striking
i did find certain scenes a little expected, and also in terms of writing, while there are moments of brilliance aplenty, there are some moments that feel a little overwritten / melodramatic idk
but very very striking
December 18, 2023
This book was really stressful to read but in a good way. I am not a mother, might never be, but I feel immensely connected to Soldier nevertheless. I am blown away by Kilroy's ability to evoke emotions in me that, even though I have never experienced them in that way, I feel like they are so intrinsically a part of me, that is to say a part of womanhood. The cries of agony of a thousand mothers past can be heard through this book, a deafening sound, made more deafening still by the fathers' failure to listen.
I was initially going to give 4,5 stars but writing this makes me realise it is in fact a 5 star book. I have a lot to discuss on Tuesday lol.
I was initially going to give 4,5 stars but writing this makes me realise it is in fact a 5 star book. I have a lot to discuss on Tuesday lol.
March 12, 2024
4.5 ale naciągam za finałowe wzruszenie, jakie to jest dobre!
January 25, 2024
I loved this book, absolutely LOVED it, but it was a tough read. I cried a lot during it. I underlined furiously.
She captures so perfectly what it is about mothering that makes it so difficult.
It’s very sharp and funny.
It made me livid, tapping into my already deep rage at men in general and useless fathers in particular. In fact, my main beef is that the main character stayed with her awful husband.
Yeah, I absolutely adored it, but if you are a mother, brace yourself.
She captures so perfectly what it is about mothering that makes it so difficult.
It’s very sharp and funny.
It made me livid, tapping into my already deep rage at men in general and useless fathers in particular. In fact, my main beef is that the main character stayed with her awful husband.
Yeah, I absolutely adored it, but if you are a mother, brace yourself.
November 18, 2023
I accidentally deleted my review of this when trying to remove it from my 'to read' Goodreads list :( anyway I thought it was fab!
January 15, 2024
This was hard to rate. I found it excruciatingly raw at times, difficult to read, but also moments that prompted beautiful reflections.
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