Claire Kilroy

An intimate look into the ups and downs of motherhood, not withholding any of the anger or injustice that comes with a mother completely changing her life to mold someone new. Nothing is glossed over, no thought or accident left unturned. Kilroy's prose ebbs and flows, gushing with poetry and imagination when our mother protagonist is feeling reckless and overwhelmed, while choppy and straightforward in times of bitterness and resolution.

The novel is very forward in approaching the role of show more fathers in a parenting team, and pinpoints painfully specific moments of weaponized incompetence. It's a passionate book, but it is not despairing. If anything, it champions that if people are willing to work to change and listen, that relationships could blossom into something even better than they began. show less

It is a short 200 paged book that follows the stream of consciousness of a woman dealing with the challenges of becoming a mother, postpartum depression (though she never explicitly says she has it), sleep deprivation and loneliness from being a stay at home with an absent husband. The thoughts are addressed to her son, Sailor, but it is unclear whether it is a letter she is addressing to him or whether she is speaking to him or whether this is simply a monologue in her mind.

Thoughts:

It was show more evocative. As a reader you are in the mind of the woman or as she calls herself, Soldier, you go through the frustrations of raising a child alone while struggling to get any level of empathy or understand from your significant other. I am not a mother and have no plans of being one so it wasn't personally relatable to me but I have seen this dynamic play out so much around me. I saw reviews that criticised this book for being too harsh towards men but that was only a reaction of Soldier's frustration with the sole burden of motherhood falling on her shoulder while her husband enjoyed his golf and football and days off.

"I don't want my friend to be my husband. I want my husband to be my friend."

This sums up the cry of help that Soldier keeps emitting and the husband keeps failing to get.

Soldier isn't a pure, perfect, truthful narrator. Her perspective is affected my her loneliness, sleep deprivation and frustration. Sometimes (or rather most times) you'd want to scream at her husband, "dude you could have said ANYTHING but that." Or, joined Soldier in her anger towards him for his weaponised incompetence. But then there will be moments where you will understand that she does shut him down when he does tries to help to the point that he has alienated himself. There are times where you will wish they just separated when every simple interaction they have is escalated into a fight.

The story does has a happy ending or rather a final moment peace and clarity in Soldier's mind once the initially sleepless phase of motherhood is over.

Kilroy has such profound prose. She masterfully immerses you in Soldier and Sailor's world and makes you feel every emotion as Soldier goes through them.

I did dislike some parts where it is explicit about her qualms with patriarchy because I felt it took away from the subtlety of the novel. The book is already a feminist one covering the difficult, unheard side of the glorified motherhood, as Soldier talks about not recognizing herself post giving birth as her individuality came to an end while the same didn't happen to her husband. His life improved in fact.

Overall, I loved this book. It was an evocative, immersive experience. show less

Extreme portrait of the, shall we say… “challenging” days and months of new motherhood. Here are the ingredients: a very fussy baby who cries all the time; a detached, uninterested, and criticizing husband/father who spends more, not less time, at work since the birth; an isolated mom (“Soldier”, narrating the story, to her now older son, “Sailor”) who apparently doesn’t have her own mom, or sister, or even a friend who can help out. Mix it together and what you get is a tale show more that plays out in chilling, sharp and vivid writing - one harrowing scene after another: screaming tantrums with head bashing, mom wounding herself with a kitchen knife while attempting to cook with said tantrum as the backdrop, vicious arguments with hubby, up night after night because the kid won’t sleep through, the descriptions of the grinding exhaustion that turns the brain into sawdust. Yes, I agree - some of it is like that, as is the constant and simultaneous blend of intense love, fear, anxiety, and hate. Soldier Mom may be too depressed to see it, but you know that “job” your husband is so crazy about? Where he spends 99% of his time? At that job, he gets this stuff called “money”, which – get this – can be used to HIRE somebody to help you. So you can take a shower, sleep, go outside, work out, be alone, instead of gradually going insane and fantasizing (or actually attempting) escape. I get that the author may be cranking the dial way, way up for dramatic effect. She is very talented and I couldn’t stop reading because there is a lot in here that any mom can relate to. But I can’t say I enjoyed going on this nightmare journey, that ends in the very simple insight that moms very deeply love their children. show less

Here is a book that, though clearly an all-encompassing and visceral read, was one I read whilst metaphorically hiding from it behind the sofa. It brought back almost fifty year old memories of the early days of motherhood. The overwhelming love for that new life brought into the world: but also the endless, utterly debilitating exhaustion, guilt, loneliness, confusion. The realisation that your partner is not, as you had believed, your equal partner, but someone who escapes every day- show more perhaps to an office, where normal life ensues. All-consuming love, combined with unremitting drudgery is woven through the book. As is the husband of the narrator ('Soldier' to her son's 'Sailor') who fails to understand, to help, to be truly involved with his son's welfare. He's resentful of the little he does, forgetful of simple but important baby-related tasks - but remember, this is Soldier's tiredness-sodden perspective. She is an unreliable narrator, but one who reliably conjures up early motherhood. We stay with Soldier as very early motherhood ends, but the all-consuming love does not. A devastating book. show less