Eleven Days
Published on 20. June 2013
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-4447-7623-2 (ISBN)
Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2014
'SUPERB', SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, LONDON EVENING STANDARD BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2013
Eleven Days is, at its heart, the story of a mother and a son.
It begins in May 2011: Sara's son Jason has been missing for nine days in the aftermath of a special operations forces mission. Out of devotion to him, Sara has made herself knowledgeable about things military, but she knows nothing more about her son's disappearance than the press corps camped out in her driveway.
In a series of flashbacks we learn about Jason's absentee father - a man who died, according to "insiders," helping to make the country safer - and Jason's decision to join the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis after 9/11 and enter into the toughest military training in the world: for the U.S. Naval Special Warfare's Navy SEAL Teams.
Through letters Jason wrote his mother while training, we see him becoming a strong, compassionate leader. But his fate will be determined by events that fall outside the sphere of his training, and far outside the strong embrace of his mother's love.
As well as a touching picture of the bond between a mother and a son this is a unique look into the training, history and culture of one of the world's elite forces. Page-turning and haunting, this is an astonishing debut which questions the very nature of sacrifice and love.
'SUPERB', SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, LONDON EVENING STANDARD BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2013
Eleven Days is, at its heart, the story of a mother and a son.
It begins in May 2011: Sara's son Jason has been missing for nine days in the aftermath of a special operations forces mission. Out of devotion to him, Sara has made herself knowledgeable about things military, but she knows nothing more about her son's disappearance than the press corps camped out in her driveway.
In a series of flashbacks we learn about Jason's absentee father - a man who died, according to "insiders," helping to make the country safer - and Jason's decision to join the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis after 9/11 and enter into the toughest military training in the world: for the U.S. Naval Special Warfare's Navy SEAL Teams.
Through letters Jason wrote his mother while training, we see him becoming a strong, compassionate leader. But his fate will be determined by events that fall outside the sphere of his training, and far outside the strong embrace of his mother's love.
As well as a touching picture of the bond between a mother and a son this is a unique look into the training, history and culture of one of the world's elite forces. Page-turning and haunting, this is an astonishing debut which questions the very nature of sacrifice and love.
Reviews / Votes
A deeply affecting story about a mother and a son that attests to the debut of an extraordinarily gifted writer... Ms. Carpenter makes palpable the immensely complicated emotional arithmetic that binds this mother and son - Sara's cherishing of her only son and her knowledge that she needs to let him find his own way in life; Jason's worries about his mother's worries, clashing up against his passionate embrace of a dangerous profession. In doing so Ms. Carpenter has written a novel that maps - much the way that Jayne Anne Phillips's classic Machine Dreams and Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country did - the fallout that war has not just on soldiers, who put their lives on the line, but also on their families, who wait anxiously back home. * Michiko Kakutani, New York Times * A superb novel of war, love and US special forces. * Simon Sebag Montefiore, London Evening Standard (Books of the Year 2013) * A compelling story made memorable by the strength of its elegant prose. * Toni Morrison * Lea Carpenter's Eleven Days is an extraordinary accomplishment. Written with an elegant precision, this book is at its core a story about love: between a mother and a son, a son and a father, and a special group of men for each other and the imperfect country they choose to serve. I highly recommend it. * Kevin Powers, bestselling author of THE YELLOW BIRDS * What Denis Johnson did for the Vietnam War in Tree of Smoke, Lea Carpenter does for Iraq and Afghanistan in her superb Eleven Days. At the core of this extraordinary novel is the love of a mother for her child. That's the story of us all, and that's the story that may well break your heart. * Ben Fountain, author of BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK * [An] earnest first novel ... Carpenter provides a convincing portrait of an exclusive and exclusively male military subculture, and of the men formed and deformed by it. * New York Times * Toni Morrison is a fan of this novel by one of the original editors of Francis Ford Coppola's lit mag Zoetrope. The story of a boy who applies to naval academy after 9/11 and then goes missing the same night of the Bin Laden raid. Think Homeland in fiction form and you get some idea of the twists and turns of this novel about the military and the nature of sacrifice and love. * Viv Groskop, Red Magazine * The nature of courage, sacrifice, love and heroism are all considered in this powerful ... debut. For all its Hollywood sheen, it is as determined to educate as it is to entertain. It's a mission that Lea Carpenter executes coolly in precise and elegant prose. * Daily Mail * An assured debut novel... [An] affecting portrayal of maternal love at a time of war. * Vogue * Exhaustively researched and skilfully written...Carpenter tells an important story - Eleven Days has all the precision and artistry of the Navy SEALs she depicts... precise, considered prose... the novel pays a necessary tribute to those who risk the ultimate sacrifice and the loved ones left to come to terms with that loss... a gut-wrenching tale of grief. * Stylist * [An] incisive, graceful novel which is certain to vault to the top of any list of high quality literature about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... Good fiction like this bears emotional authority that transcends the question of whether something "could" occur... Carpenter's writing is resonant in a way that doesn't call attention to itself, but builds upon itself, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, to serve the whole of the book... Perhaps one of the most impressive-and unconventional-qualities of Eleven Days is the lack of a traditional antagonist. That's assuredly intentional. This isn't an "us" versus "them" narrative. It's about the nature of mythology, how it's shaped, why it's crafted, and what it does to us as a culture and society... With searing, sometimes uncomfortable truths like that found throughout Eleven Days, Lea Carpenter has written a novel that matters. * Daily Beast * Carpenter's intelligence and sincerity find powerful expression in the novel's sophisticated structure... This story reminds us that each of these warriors, no matter how brave and tough and deadly, is still some woman's beloved son. * Washington Post * somber yet moving... an ode to manhood, to motherhood, to the modern warrior and perhaps most compelling an ode to heroics. * Huffington Post * Eagerly awaited * Guardian * Riveting and deeply moving - every mother should read this. * Frances Osborne, author of PARK LANE & THE BOLTER * Carpenter raises searching questions about what the US has embarked on and notions of honour and courage... poised and gently melancholic... ultimately, this is a tale of a mother and son's unbreakable bond. * Metro * ...full of insight and grace. * Sydney Morning Herald * ...good writing and a great story. * Weekend Australian * ...a beautifully written debut. * Herald Sun Melbourne * Stripped of either satire or extreme violence, [Eleven Days] lingers on the cold inevitabilities of conflict, which makes it a highly moral anti-war novel without noisily announcing itself as such... This well-turned story packs plenty of emotion. Among the smartest of the batch of recent American war novels. * Kirkus reviews * With poignant prose and an impeccably structured narrative, Carpenter's novel is the sweet pitch before the violin screeches; the concluding state of reverence for a world we can't control and a song for the war in Afghanistan that provides comfort without reason. * Publishers Weekly * A stark debut... Written in simple but stirring prose, it's an elegant meditation on the love between a mother and son. * Entertainment Weekly * The most remarkable aspect of Eleven Days is the fact that Carpenter depicts the civil-military divide without a hint of irony, instead choosing to tell her story with deep heart and conviction, not unlike the sense of duty that Jason exhibits throughout the book. * World Policy Journal blog * An exceptional debut. * Bookbag * Every soldier was, once, someone's child. With this ineluctable truth at her story's core, Lea Carpenter has crafted a beautiful, and original, work of art. Eleven Days manages to be both a meditation on courage and a gripping read. Scholarly and stylish, displaying a capacious mind and even greater heart. A magnificent debut. * Alexandra Styron, author of READING MY FATHER *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Illustrations
none
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 143 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
420 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4447-7623-2 (9781444776232)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Lea Carpenter graduated summa cum laude phi beta kappa from Princeton and has an MBA from Harvard. She was one of the original editors at Francis Ford Coppola's literary magazine, Zoetrope, and later served as Deputy Publisher for The Paris Review.
She lives in New York with her husband and their two sons. She has served in various capacities at the New York Public Library for over fifteen years, where she assists with new programming initiatives.
This is her first novel.
She lives in New York with her husband and their two sons. She has served in various capacities at the New York Public Library for over fifteen years, where she assists with new programming initiatives.
This is her first novel.