Soldier Sailor
'Intense, furious, moving and often extremely funny.' DAVID NICHOLLS
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
The Times Novel of the Year
And a Guardian, FT, Economist, Irish Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Irish Independent and Independent Book of the Year
'One of the finest novels published this year.' Sunday Times
'I could not put it down.' ANNE ENRIGHT
'It's very moving, also very funny.' PAUL MURRAY
'My favourite book I've read this year.' PANDORA SYKES
'I lived and breathed beside her narrator.' DAISY JOHNSON
In her wildly acclaimed new novel Claire Kilroy creates an unforgettable heroine, whose fierce love for her young son clashes with the seismic change to her own identity.
As her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of love, autonomy, creativity and the passing of time, an old friend makes a welcome return - but can he really offer a lifeline to the woman she used to be?
Readers adore Soldier Sailor:
***** 'About as perfect a piece of writing as you'll find.'
***** 'Unbearably tense and frequently hilarious.'
***** 'An entirely different voltage to anything I've read ... she somehow manages to verbalise *exactly* the feelings and thoughts I, certainly, had at points when I was a young mother'
***** 'This story touched me on such a visceral level.'
***** 'I was held captive by this novel ... an utterly absorbing depiction of motherhood'
***** 'I loved this book. Any woman, with or without children, will see themselves mirrored in this narrative'
***** 'An excellent, interesting and rather unforgettable creation.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kilroy's gut-wrenching latest (after The Devil I Know) finds a mother, Soldier, recounting to her son, Sailor, the first few years of his life. The action moves fluidly between past and present, mimicking the out-of-time nature of early motherhood, and the immersive prose veers from lyrical ("The world rotated beneath us and we were the world") to brutal (when Sailor was whining at six months old, Soldier screamed at him to "Shut the fuck up"). Soldier also expresses resentment toward men, including her husband, for never having to go through childbirth ("Tell me, men: when were you last split open from the inside?"). At times it can be difficult to distinguish between what actually happened and Soldier's dark fantasies, such as her plan to abandon Sailor as an infant—but the novel builds to a gorgeous closing soliloquy, in which Soldier lays bare the confounding and heartbreaking reality of mothering. This is worth seeking out.
