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Kilroy wants to return to her old rhythm of a novel every three years. Is there a potential trilogy on the stages of childhood? “I don’t think so, I’ve said my bit. I will return to pure imagination now.” She has already started her next novel, which is about a ghost. You think this tree that shelters you is unassailable, Sailor, but look again. Even on the stillest of days, every last leaf is trembling.” Davies, Stevie (31 August 2012). "The Devil I Know by Claire Kilroy – Review". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media . Retrieved 13 November 2014. She cherishes the prospect of sharing precious years with her child in the future before the ravages of age take their t 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."
Kilroy’s nameless protagonist is an older first-time mother – some might say slave – to a cute, capricious toddler. From the prison/haven of their Howth home, the symbiotic relationship is powerfully depicted. He relies on her for everything; her equilibrium, meanwhile, is contingent on his moods, whims, appetite, sleep patterns, health. There is, towards the end of the novel, a virtuosic set-piece about a late-night fever that veers so far into nightmare territory, it feels as if we’re reading a thriller. This territory is familiar for Kilroy, who published an essay, F for Phone, in 2015’s Winter Papers anthology about how she lost her ability to write, and therefore a connection to herself, after the birth of her son, Lawrence. The job now is to reflect on middle age and mortality. We know we are going to die, it’s a very unpleasant piece of information. Are we in denial? My cousin died at 39, one of the school mums died at 37, both cancer. Christine was one of the infancy infantry and we watched her slowly die, that’s where the whole warrior thing comes from. She did the whole school run till she couldn’t manage the steps, then she’d wait at the top because she didn’t want to say goodbye. It was terrible. You have a human imagination and you try to shape those feelings into a story. We will die, we will lose each other. How do we accept that? I think that’s what it is, you don’t know what you’re writing or why till later.” Kilroy, the author of four previous novels, including Tenderwire and The Devil I Know, was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2004 and has been shortlisted for many prizes, including the Irish Novel of the Year award and the Kerry Group award for fiction. Although Soldier Sailor is billed as a novel, her first in 12 years, the structure doesn’t follow a classical arc. Characterisation is deft but fleeting. Break-ups and reunions happen offstage. The focus is on mother and son, soldier and sailor, a relationship that is strikingly rendered through the intimacy of the second-person voice: “Yes, yes, I know: we scream at each other from morning to night but my love for you swells its banks while you sleep.” There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway,” wrote Cyril Connolly. It’s a quotation that the novelist Claire Kilroy may well have reflected on over the years.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. Author Claire Kilroy captures micro-moments of the struggle that are so real for the new mom but gain little by way of support or sympathy from any quarters but especially close quarters and that lead to resentment, seething resentment, threatening at times to crush the marriage. In fairness these do provide the novel's comedic moments (darkly comedic) and these are most successful in their descriptions of passive aggression: The novel is dedicated to her father Jim, who was a very hands-on dad, and to her friend and fellow writer Sarah Bannan, head of literature at the Arts Council, whose son Ruairi tragically died in February. Soldier Sailor is a fictional novelisation of the experiences Claire Kilroy originally documented in her 2015 essay F ofr Phone. Downey, Sarah (24 November 2010). "Catching up with Claire Kilroy". writing.ie . Retrieved 13 November 2014.
You open the door and look out into the rain and realise that there is nowhere for you to go; and even if there were, you cannot leave. You might as well try to walk away from your own arm.” This is Anne Enright, in typically brilliant form, on the invisible ties of motherhood, in her best-selling memoir Making Babies. It’s a quote that wouldn’t be out of place in Claire Kilroy’s new novel Soldier Sailor, a provocative and intriguing book that lays bare the delights and demands of new motherhood. Kilroy attended Trinity College, Dublin, studying English, as an undergraduate. She went on to work as an assistant editor on the BBC television drama Ballykissangel, while writing the first draft of her novel All Summer. In 2000, she decided to return to Trinity College and earned her M. Phil. in Creative Writing. [2] This choice ultimately led to her publishing deal with Faber & Faber.
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If Kilroy’s novel ended here, it would have done more than enough to locate her among the ranks of motherhood’s laureates alongside the likes of Helen Simpson, Rachel Cusk and Sarah Moss. But it doesn’t. The final section expands – abruptly, beautifully, agonisingly – to grapple with the true existential crisis at the heart of motherhood: the understanding, born with the baby, that we’re all time’s prisoners and “it will do us in in the end”. We crawl out, ultimately, from the chaos of early motherhood, but the love continues to obliterate us. “I wasn’t scared of dying until you were born,” Soldier says towards the novel’s close. Forget the sleepless nights; that’s the real horror, right there. 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.” For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. What a visceral read! Soldier Sailor by Irish author, Claire Kilroy is written as a mother’s letter to her son. Her account of the life-changing mad blur that is early motherhood. Although lead character, Soldier’s situation wasn’t 100% the same as mine, Soldier Sailor is by far the most accurate representation I’ve read on the churning feelings you go through when you become a mother and suddenly find that your life is dictated by a small human. 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.
Overwhelmed and exhausted and on the brink of collapse she is at times a risk to her child, to his safety, and yet somehow the idea coexists that she is his fiercest protector and will do anything for him. This idea is stretched to the point of suggesting the mother is the sacrificial lamb upon which the life of her baby depends. Meanwhile her husband continues with his normal life and regular routines and seems oblivious to the chaos that swamps them. 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." Two authors Kilroy cites as influential to her work are John Banville and Vladimir Nabokov. After reading Lolita at age 16, she was inspired to write sentences as vividly as Nabokov. [3] She counts Martin Amis, Andrew O'Hagan, and Michael Frayn among some of her favourite authors, while her favourite Irish novel is John Banville's Athena. 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.
As a young woman, I distinctly remember passing women pushing prams, thinking that’s not going to happen to me Sailor is a handful in the same way that any baby or toddler is. Their existence and demands are endless. Soldier’s husband is busy at work, distinctly absent in caring for their child, so she feels isolated and alone in this new, intense way of life. 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.
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