Soldier Sailor

Shortlisted for The Women’s Prize

The Times (London) Novel of the Year * Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, Financial Times, The Economist, The Irish Times, The Daily Telegraph (London), The New Statesman (UK), The Irish Independent, and The Independent

Award-winning author Claire Kilroy’s exquisite and provocative novel that reads with the pace of a thriller and is filled with astute and witty observations of life with a young child.

Claire Kilroy takes readers deep inside the early days of motherhood. Exploring the clash of fierce love with a seismic shift in identity, Kilroy conjures the raw, tumultuous emotions of a new mother, as her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of equality, autonomy, and creativity.

Soldier Sailor is a tale of boundless love and relentless battle, a bedtime story to a son, Sailor, recounting their early years together. Spending her days in baby groups, playgrounds, and supermarkets, Soldier doesn’t know who she is anymore. She hardly sees her husband, who has taken to working late most nights. A chance encounter with a former colleague feels like a lifeline to the person she used to be but can hardly remember.

Tender and harrowing, Kilroy’s modern masterpiece portrays parenthood in all its agony and ardent joy.