Scan barcode
A review by lonestarwords
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
emotional
reflective
4.0
Motherhood’s moment in literature continues. Soldier Sailor is another novel that illuminates the complex experience of becoming a mother and rearing young children. There are SO many quotes I wish I could share, but this arc asks that we not, so you’ll have to trust me - Kilroy digs deep and cuts to the heart.
•
I’ve loved the motherhood trend but I will say that not every book resonates - Soldier Sailor did. I watched an interview with Colm Toibin and he mentioned reading this book and realizing he’d never given much thought to the absolute inertia that embodies the experience of being alone with an infant. How do you successfully get to the grocery store? Take a shower? Deal with a toddler throwing a tantrum? It’s incredibly hard to bring these seemingly simple moments to life and impart the overwhelming stress and frustration that accompanies them. And then of course there is the exhaustion - Kilroy conveys the fatigue that defines young motherhood to a T through our narrator’s experience.
•
Told in first person, the young mother in this story recounts to her young son (Sailor) memories of their first years together. She verbalizes her dreams for him and what kind of man she hopes he will become - one not like his father. This is as much a story about marriage as motherhood and it illustrates how the birth of a child irrevocably changes a marriage, for good or for bad.
•
The last ten pages of this book had me fighting back tears, not only as I remembered my raw feelings as a young mom, but also now as I help care for my granddaughter. The emotions attached to caring for an infant are powerful and Kilroy did such a beautiful job of depicting an average day, and how there is nothing average about the dedication necessary to a tiny person.
•
Although I can’t share a quote word for word, there is a passage at the end of the book in which the narrator remembers her grandmother, in her dementia, calling out for her baby over and over again. The narrator tells us that she finally understood the magnitude of that connection. This one is a gut punch, but in all the right ways. Out June 4. Thank you @scribnerbooks for this early copy.
•
I’ve loved the motherhood trend but I will say that not every book resonates - Soldier Sailor did. I watched an interview with Colm Toibin and he mentioned reading this book and realizing he’d never given much thought to the absolute inertia that embodies the experience of being alone with an infant. How do you successfully get to the grocery store? Take a shower? Deal with a toddler throwing a tantrum? It’s incredibly hard to bring these seemingly simple moments to life and impart the overwhelming stress and frustration that accompanies them. And then of course there is the exhaustion - Kilroy conveys the fatigue that defines young motherhood to a T through our narrator’s experience.
•
Told in first person, the young mother in this story recounts to her young son (Sailor) memories of their first years together. She verbalizes her dreams for him and what kind of man she hopes he will become - one not like his father. This is as much a story about marriage as motherhood and it illustrates how the birth of a child irrevocably changes a marriage, for good or for bad.
•
The last ten pages of this book had me fighting back tears, not only as I remembered my raw feelings as a young mom, but also now as I help care for my granddaughter. The emotions attached to caring for an infant are powerful and Kilroy did such a beautiful job of depicting an average day, and how there is nothing average about the dedication necessary to a tiny person.
•
Although I can’t share a quote word for word, there is a passage at the end of the book in which the narrator remembers her grandmother, in her dementia, calling out for her baby over and over again. The narrator tells us that she finally understood the magnitude of that connection. This one is a gut punch, but in all the right ways. Out June 4. Thank you @scribnerbooks for this early copy.