This novel is narrated by an Irish mother describing the extremely difficult experience of raising her son. She addresses these reflections to the son and refers to this boy as Sailor. Though the narrative is directed at him it's left ambivalent whether she's writing this down as a letter or merely composing this monologue in her mind. We follow roughly a year or so in her life during which Sailor turns two and then three years old. She's deeply exhausted, frustrated and depressed. This state of mind is infused into the narrative itself which veers from sharply realistic and disastrous scenes of daily life to hazy waking dream like states to periods of deep contemplation.
The story puts out into the open a lot of the harsh reality concerning parenting which is often swept under the carpet. Early on she wonders: “Would you have had a baby if they told you that stuff?” Yet this isn't simply a story about the horrors of parenting which would scare anyone away from wanting to have a child. It is just one woman's perspective – it's not trying to be universal although I'm sure many parents will greatly relate to particular moments in this book and there's a lot to learn here. It's very raw and emotional and down to earth, but also finely written (almost poetic in places) and occasionally funny (often in a tragi-comic way). A small detail I found very funny early on is when she says “I unstrapped my prize marrow” as if the baby were a vegetable she's bringing to the country fair.
There's a real crispness to Kilroy's prose which can so neatly sum up her experience: “I was so tired and you were so hungry. But you wouldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. Mother and child.” Even though the story of the difficulty of raising a child has been told many times before and we all know a lot of what she describes (whether we have direct experience of it or not) it's never been told quite like this before. So it felt very original to me. At it's heart this book feels like a desperate cry to be heard and understood and a plea for people to stop being dicks. This is something she states a number of time in the way people react to her or dismiss her in public when she's clearly going through a tough time. In reference to a cashier she remarks “To him I was yet another clumsy housewife who couldn't keep up with him. I know this because I used to think that way too. I used to be a dick. There's a spectrum. I was on it. But you won't be a dick because I have enlightened you. Be an astronaut, be a nurse, be a postman, be whatever. Just don't be a dick.” One of the biggest dicks in her life is her husband. She's the main caretaker as he has a demanding job and is often at the office. But even when he is home the duties of parenting are still placed upon her. So she doesn't have the time to work herself or express herself creatively. Again, it's well known that high expectations are placed upon a mother at home while the father works but this novel really shows the ins and outs of that experience.
The husband does often come across as a villainous dick. He says and does some horribly dismissive and neglectful things. But because it's entirely from her perspective we only get her side so undoubtably it's very difficult for him as well. I feel like the novel acknowledges this in some of her extreme actions and the way she can dismiss his good intentions and questions when he's trying to understand her. Yet I primarily felt on her side because she's often wrangling with the child while he's there but he's just on his phone or watching tv.
It's very interesting that she also occasionally meets someone she refers to as her friend. This is a man she's known since childhood. He now has three children and they sometimes run into each other at the playground. As the primary carer since his wife works a demanding job he can really sympathise with her because he's going through the same thing. This has such a positive effect because part of the trouble is how isolated and lonely she is. He's a counterpoint to her husband and she remarks at one point: “my faith in masculinity was at stake and my friend redeemed it”. But I feel like there's a compelling ambiguity about whether the friend is even real or someone she's just imagined as a companion. This aspect really reminded me of the film 'Tully' where Charlize Theron portrays a highly stressed mother. I think the novel does leave it up to interpretation. The friend could be real and his life has coincidentally run parallel to hers. For part of the book I wondered if there was a romantic tension there but I don't think it's as simple as that because she also states at one point “I didn't want my friend to be my husband. I wanted my husband to be my friend.” And that seems to get at the crux of why she's relating her experience like this.
She understandably feels like she's losing her mind and that she's losing her connection to the people most precious to her: her husband and her son. So this account is a heartfelt attempt to solidify that connection and create an understanding between them. Even though it's almost definitely an internal monologue it raises interesting questions about whether it's right for a parent to be this open about the struggles they face. Is it damaging and placing too much guilt upon a child to let that child know the pain its mere existence has caused? Or is it better to have total honesty so there can be real understanding within a family? I think these are questions this novel is consciously raising and there aren't any easy answers. Certainly there have been points I've wondered what my parents really went through raising me but would I really want to know that full truth? It's hard to say.
There are a couple of brief poignant moments in the story where she recalls her own parents. There's the memory of being taken to a beach as a child and wanting to return to that beach but realising it's not the beach she misses but the parent and a connection to that parent. At another point she acknowledges the lineage of motherhood she's entered where she writes “I had sighed like my mother had sighed before me and hers before her...” So she seems to be relating this story so her son will feel this connection too. But, again, it's also ambiguous about whether Sailor actually hears or reads what his mother is telling him. It's more likely that she's silently directing her thoughts towards him and he'll never know how she really felt going through this often hellish experience. This adds another tragic element to the story. So I found reading this book a moving and eye opening experience especially since I don't have any children myself.
