I loved this book. A monologue charting the love affair between mother and baby son, documenting the agony and ecstasy of motherhood: the bond-like-no-other and the gruelling fatigue and feelings of inadequacy, the resentment and alienation from partner in the early days. Any woman, with or without children, will see themselves mirrored in this narrative, because we all share feelings of self-doubt and anger at being 'lesser' at times. I highly recommend it.

Unflinching and honest - a book about the fierce love of a mother for her son. Every mother has been there - I smiled at the descriptions of toddler group and swing park politics - and we have all come out of the other end older and wiser. A novel every new father should read!
I’m a grandmother now and I empathised with the ending. Thought-provoking……

Soldier, Sailor
by Claire Kilroy

Reading this book was my Mother's Day treat this year, a whole 5 hours to myself with Claire Kilroy's story of motherhood, how it catapults you into a world of fear and love and overwhelm and pride and exhaustion and joy pain and devotion and trauma and connection and resentment and obsession and confusion and shame and judgement and never-ending, never-ending, never-ending.....

This story touched me on such a visceral level. It speaks not only of mothering, but also of the colossal amount of change that a woman becoming a mother goes through, the pressures that are put on her physiology, her psyche, her relationships, particularly marriage. The friendships that are abandoned, the freedoms that are lost, the ways society views her, the ways she views herself. It gets right into the imbalance in sharing household and child-rearing chores, not to mention the freedoms that the other half doesn't lose.

Kilroy brings us on an emotional rollercoaster of extremes, from anger and resentment in one chapter, I dare you to deny any of them, followed by the hilarious situations we all recognise, where we marvel at how we ended up here. If you speak fluent passive/aggression there are many nuggets and gems to chew over. We get the full pendulum swing from self depreciation to complete outrage and back again.

I'm going to quote Sebastian Barry's blurb because it perfectly sums up what this book is and it's what drew me in, and might be the best summation of a book that I have ever read:

"Every woman on earth will identify with this book. Every man will learn something urgent to his betterment. It sings with great authority about the wretched entrapment and molecular joy of motherhood...a radiant and fearless work of universal import"

I recommend this to every mother and every father, but I worry that it might have the unintentional effect of wiping out the human race should it be placed in the hands of those who haven't made up their minds about parenthood (or marriage) yet.

Publication date: 4th May 2023
With thanks to #netgalley and #faberbooks for the ARC

Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy is a raw, unflinching, tender, beautifully written depiction of motherhood and the maternal role.

This book runs very hot, which is to say the tension created by the unique voice here is an entirely different voltage to anything I think I've read. What's it about? Motherhood, really, which sounds like it might have been done before a few times. Maybe it has, but not like this. Kilroy uses fiction to explore the pain of motherhood, the strength of emotion, the depth of fear. All of that, and more. It's a tricky read, in some ways - for me, at any rate - because she somehow manages to verbalise *exactly* the feelings and thoughts I, certainly, had at points when I was a young mother. It's intense, and only as long as it needs to be. Top-notch writing and highly recommended as both fiction and fiction as non-fiction. My grateful thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC.

More than two decades ago, Rachel Cusk published her thought-provoking reflections on motherhood entitled ‘A Life’s Work’. More recently, there was Ashley Audrain’s ‘The Push’, a fictional account of how longed-for motherhood can go very wrong. ‘Soldier Sailor’ sits somewhere in the middle. The strong bond between a mother (the soldier ready to defend her offspring at all cost) and her son (the sailor ready for his voyage through life) is indicated through the lack of punctuation or connectives in the title. The book itself is a stream-of-consciousness account of what it means to be a mother. Although the narrator is cushioned by privilege and financial affluence, can the fierce love for her child protect her from all the challenge and turbulences life puts in her way?
A thought-provoking book, this is not to be read lightly but a work that you have to engage with. I received a free ARC from the publishers and NetGalley that allowed me to explore this book and to write this book review.

“That girl, you’d have liked her, but I left her for dead. Had to. This was a woman’s job.”

In her first book in ten years, Claire Kilroy gives us a brutally honest, and sometimes overwhelming, study of the early days and years of parenthood. The novel follows the haze through which our protagonist (the eponymous 'Soldier') experiences motherhood- from blazing rows with her husband, fears over child development and intimate moments of connection between mother and son.

Masculinity vs. femininity is a key presence throughout the novel, with our protagonist often directly addressing her son, making the book read as an instruction manual on what is means to be a man in this world; a recurring theme of the book. Another theme that really struck me was the protagonists’ nostalgia for her old life, her life before motherhood. How intelligent and interesting she was, how she considered the forces of patriarchy to be waning in our current world. How the gender gap was closing, wasn't it? Then she had a child, became a mother and begins to see how unbalanced the scale of unpaid labour is, and how expectant her husband is that she be the primary caregiver. Kilroy perfectly highlights this juxtaposition between the way she see herself and the way the world sees her as a mother.

Kilroy isn’t afraid to chart the very worst parts of motherhood, and she writes this with unflinching honesty and a sense of claustrophobia- I often felt panic rising within my chest whilst reading some passages! But equally, the moments of joy are written so evocatively and with real love and care- expertly and viscerally capturing the bond between mother and child.

‘Soldier Sailor’ is out in May!

I initially struggled with the narrative style of this but I'm so glad I kept going. Wow. It's a hugely emotional read and one that will stay with you. The language is beautiful and raw and intimate. It's breathtaking.

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.

Mother Terror, Mother Hate, Mother Despair, Mother Exhaustion, Mother Love – and so much more

Claire Kilroy’s extraordinary, lacerating book is a maelstrom of emotion, beautiful writing and confused all at once states of being.

This should probably be required reading for anyone embarking on starting a family in naïve and innocent excitement.

On the other hand……………maybe those who read it might immediately opt for a tube tying operation in droves.

The central character, and narrator, a brilliant woman, a doctor, married to a brilliant man, a paediatrician, had joyfully and lovingly decided to start their family.

This is her love letter, life letter, stream of consciousness for her child, both immediately after his birth, and taking some giant strides through his early years, and far beyond

Beginning with a woman, terrified of herself and the vulnerability and enormity of her newborn, and teetering on the edge of a dreadful decision, the reader (like the new mother) is initially in the middle of some kind of combination of emotional earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption. Out of her mind

The exhausting, impossible demands of her infant, the collapse of this previously independent, witty, intelligent and vital woman into, purely, mother, and the burdens she shoulders are quite horrendous, and dreadfully believeable. Normal, in fact.

But still, this is far more than a dire misery fest of loss of identity and selfless surrender to the powerful vulnerability of the next generation, during their early childhood.

It is also elegiac and transcending. And wonderful.

I had some quibbles right at the start, at the nearly disaster, and, perhaps a certain contrivance in how this was done, and, at the end, the switch into the resolution and transcending section, but, oh what a journey, and what wonderful writing

I decided to pick this to take me out of my comfort zone and because of the associated blurb
This is decidedly not my book. My irritation with "Soldier" the main character was immense. Too much "wincing" going on. Wincing retinas?? Wincing cervix?? Really? She did sound as though she was suffering from post partum psychosis. It did seem very sad that having a baby pulled the couple apart so badly., so much so you wonder if it was a "fix the marriage" baby
The circle of life bits at the end I felt were very valid
I didn't click with the characters or the writing style possible because I'm completely opposite
I can imagine it being extremely popular with Mumsnet types
Worth reading for me to be taken from my comfort zone so I'm glad I did read it