• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • The Ship
  • Press & Reviews
  • Events
  • Contact

Antonia Honeywell

Writer

  • Blog
  • Publication & Beyond
    • Countdown To Publication
  • My Reading & Reviews
    • Baileys Prize 2015
    • Bailey’s Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2013
    • Other Reading
  • Any Other Business
    • Advent 2018
    • Advent 2016
You are here: Home / Blog / My Reading & Reviews / Baileys Prize 2014 / Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter

Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter

30th March 2014 By Antonia Honeywell Leave a Comment

Novels set in the First and Second World Wars continue to come thick and fast – Anna Hope’s Wake, Louise Walters’ Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, Audrey Magee’s The Undertaking, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Alison Macleod’s Unexploded to name just a few of the very recent ones. They’re wonderful novels; however cruel it may be, war is rich with material for writers. Eleven Days is breaking new ground, not in writing about war, but in writing about the war between America and Afghanistan. It is a war novel, but not a period piece; it’s bleakly and starkly of now.

An affair at nineteen with a CIA analyst thirty years her senior left Sara pregnant, and the baby, Jason, is the centre of her life. However, Jason is no longer a baby – her intelligent, thoughtful, beloved son is now a soldier. And he is missing. The novel tells the story of the days during which Sara waits for news, with flashbacks to her son’s childhood. She comes to understand the process by which the sensitive, caring child came to join the military, and to appreciate his commitment to a controversial war. Jason’s godfather, a man of power and influence, goes to extraordinary lengths to bring the mother and son together; during the process, Sara begins to understand the sheer scale of her son’s involvement. As a mother, she is forced to realise that the unique qualities that made Jason, Jason, are also the qualities that his country needed, and that he gave them willingly.

Eleven Days does not debate American involvement in Afghanistan – it’s not a political novel, but an emotional one. Sara is a wonderful character – strong, independent, completely invested in her only child. Carpenter’s writing is convincing and compelling; in Eleven Days, she has created a modern and uncompromising hymn to military brilliance, to duty and above all, to maternal love.

Filed Under: Baileys Prize 2014, Blog, My Reading & Reviews

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Antonia

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest Tweets

  • .@LostboxUK @tfl @tfllostproperty Left on a Santander bicycle, at the Chapel Street/Marylebone Lane station, near W… https://t.co/7QVJv93qkR 30th January 2023 10:01 am

Most Recent Posts

  • An invitation to my birthday 2nd May 2021
  • An alternative vigil for Sarah Everard 17th March 2021
  • Decompression Day 19th June 2019
  • Arriving in Entebbe 5th June 2019
  • Out of Office – Uganda 4th June 2019
  • Writing and failure 9th April 2019
  • Andy Murray Is Not Dead 11th January 2019
  • Day 24 24th December 2018
  • Day 23 23rd December 2018
  • Day 22 22nd December 2018

Categories

  • Blog
  • Publication & Beyond
    • Countdown To Publication
  • My Reading & Reviews
    • Baileys Prize 2015
    • Bailey’s Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2013
    • Other Reading
  • Any Other Business
    • Advent 2018
    • Advent 2016

Copyright © 2023 · Antonia Honeywell
Joanna Craig Website Design