Soldier Sailor: A Novel

"The word that came up most frequently during the judging meetings when we spoke about this book was “visceral.” It’s a gut-punch of a book, which provokes so many emotions in the reader: sorrow, rage, tenderness, laughter—it’s often funny, you know. The whole range. It balances the light and the dark. And it’s suffused with love. It’s written in the form of a love letter from ‘Soldier,’ as she calls herself, to ‘Sailor,’ her son. Alongside the grief and the rage there are comedic aspects—of trying to make dinner and bath a baby at the same time, and the disasters that ensure. What did you say they called it? Brief, and— Well, I don’t agree with that. The ending is almost metaphysical, it’s philosophical. You stand back and think about the big picture of life and this eternal cycle that we’re in, generation after generation. It’s uplifting, actually."