Eleven Days, Lea Carpenter I find it so difficult to say interesting things about books that I love. Encomiums tend to be a bit dull, and also ring a bit hollow.
 
So what can I say about this book? It was, to me, very nearly perfect. Beautifully written--not in a showy way, but very elegant. Every word rang true. It is a page-turner, almost a thriller, but it is also, unexpectedly, a novel of ideas. Ideas about war and parenting and love. Sara and Jason felt real to me. I can quibble with some minor aspects of the book--Jason's motivation for entering the military was a little trite, some perspective shifts near the end did not work--but the core is solid. 
 
(I recognize this review is maddeningly vague. I am trying not to spoil anything.)
 
All I can really ask of a novel is that it sticks with me once it is finished. The best novels enable you to see the world from an entirely new perspective--to me, that is the purpose of fiction. This book did that. Read it. ( )

Eleven Days, Lea Carpenter I find it so difficult to say interesting things about books that I love. Encomiums tend to be a bit dull, and also ring a bit hollow.
 
So what can I say about this book? It was, to me, very nearly perfect. Beautifully written--not in a showy way, but very elegant. Every word rang true. It is a page-turner, almost a thriller, but it is also, unexpectedly, a novel of ideas. Ideas about war and parenting and love. Sara and Jason felt real to me. I can quibble with some minor aspects of the book--Jason's motivation for entering the military was a little trite, some perspective shifts near the end did not work--but the core is solid. 
 
(I recognize this review is maddeningly vague. I am trying not to spoil anything.)
 
All I can really ask of a novel is that it sticks with me once it is finished. The best novels enable you to see the world from an entirely new perspective--to me, that is the purpose of fiction. This book did that. Read it. ( )

The backstory: Eleven Days, the debut novel by Lea Carpenter, was longlisted for the 2014 Bailey's Prize and shortlisted for the 2013 Flaherty-Dunnan Prize.

The basics: Set in May 2011, Sara's son Jason, part of an elite military unit, has been missing for nine days. Jason and his disappearance are national news. Carpenter tells the story in alternating voices of Sara, in 2011, and Jason, from the past.

My thoughts: Carpenter immediately drew me into this novel and Sara's narrative. The writing is lush and emotional. When the narration shifts to Jason (and the past), I was intrigued. Soon, however, I found myself longing for more Sara and less Jason, or rather less Jason not seen through Sara's thoughts. Structurally, Jason's narration struck me as a functional and intellectual plot device. It lacked Sara's emotionally authentic, and thus more compelling, voice.

Admittedly, this novel is the first one with a strong mother-son connection I've read since I found out I'm pregnant with a son. How much this new knowledge impacted by connection to Sara is difficult to say, but the passages in which she ponders his childhood moved me move than they might have before this knowledge:
"Art and writing: these were his early passions. And that pleased her; it somehow reinforced her sense of herself. It reinforced that she had not ever been owned by anyone--not a government, not a military, not a man. It also reinforced her dreams for what she wanted her son to be. She wanted him to be free from the demons that had come with what his father did, or at least what she knew of what he did. She didn't want a son who grew up to be familiar with words like Kalashinikov, katusha, or jezail--unless he learned them from a Kipling poem."
The passage is beautiful in its own right, and it exemplifies so much of Sara's character and internal thoughts, yet I felt more like a mother character than I often do, rather than simply coming to understand her better.

Favorite passage: "Part of the blissful ignorance of not yet having had a first child is the belief that you might just be able to influence the course of their lives. Influence them to greatness. And away from danger."

The verdict: Eleven Days is a beautifully written, contemplative war novel, but it's also a novel concerned with themes much deeper and broader than war. Carpenter is clearly a talent to watch.

Rating: 4 out of 5 ( )

The military life is hard on both the soldier and the family. In this fictionalized account of a promising young man who decides to go to the Naval Academy after 9/11, the emphasis is on the psychological aspect of the punitive training to become a Navy SEAL as well as the emotional aspect of giving your only child to the military. Lea Carpenter competently portrays the sacrifices of mother and son. The eleven days in the title refers to the time between Jason's MIA status and Sara finding out what happened to her son in Afghanistan. It is also symbolic of the eleven-day truce after the death of Hector in The Iliad and the World War I Armistice signing at 11:a.m. on November ll, 1918.

There is a plethora of military detail in the book along with plenty of philosophical insights to dwell on. Carpenter also uses many mythological references, and it's evident that Jason represents his beloved namesake in the story of "Jason and the Argonauts" as both were highly dependent on teamwork to reach their goals. Jason is influenced by his dead father's love of poetry. He reads the poems of WWI at night after his grueling days of physical activity and mental stress. While he remembers the heavy casualties of previous wars, he contemplates his role as a warrior who practices restraint in order to prevent needless casualties.

Carpenter writes about the restraint of the new military while she exercises restraint in her writing to avoid the sentimentality that is often present in parent/child stories. Emotion is present but is tempered with the ideals of sacrifice and nobility. I salute Ms. Carpenter on her debut novel which is a powerful love story as well as an intriguing war story. ( )

I just finished reading this book, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that so moved me about the book. Suffice it to say right now that it is remarkable -- intelligent, enlightening, sparse, and powerful all at once. ( )