Soldier Sailor

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. (June)