Solider Sailor by Claire Kilroy

First book I’ve read from the #womensprizeforfiction and I loved it. A quick but big read that sent reeling back through the years to when my girls were small. Soldier Sailor reminded me how exhausting, how frightening babies were. How can we ever prepare for the love, that open heart surgery love? Or that rage, blistering and boiling and feral? No one tells us mothers how we will bend, stretch, blur, claw, serve, sweat, bleed, crawl for our children. How we will never be alone again even when we are lonely. And god it is lonely, this mothering. Much funnier looking back on it now than it was at the time. Oh those car rows!

From the back

In her wildly acclaimed new novel Claire Kilroy creates an unforgettable heroine, whose fierce love for her young son clashes with the seismic change to her own identity.

As her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of love, autonomy, creativity and the passing of time, an old friend makes a welcome return - but can he really offer a lifeline to the woman she used to be?