Milkman
Author: Anna Burns
Publisher: Graywolf Press
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Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has been taking French night classes downtown. So when a local paramilitary named Milkman begins pursuing her, she suddenly becomes "interesting," the last thing she ever wanted to be. Despite middle sister's attempts to avoid him — and to keep her mother from finding out about her maybe-boyfriend — rumors spread and the threat of violence lingers. Milkman is a story of the way inaction can have enormous repercussions, in a time when the wrong flag, wrong religion, or even a sunset can be subversive. Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.
TL;DR Review
Milkman is a story that takes place during the political conflict in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. I appreciated it more than I enjoyed it (it’s dense), but its impressiveness as a work of literary fiction can’t be denied.
For you if: You like literary historical fiction and don’t mind a quasi-stream-of-consciousness narrative style.
Full Review
I was too buzzy to read, thinking of teacher, of her manner of saying there were sunsets every day, that we weren’t meant to be coffined and buried whilst all the time still living, that nothing of the dark was so enormous that never could we surmount it, that always there were new chapters, that we must let go of the old, open ourselves to symbolism, to the most unexpected of interpretations, that we must too, uncover what we’ve kept hidden, what we think we might have lost.
Milkman has been on my list for a while as I’ve made my way through the 2019 Women’s Prize shortlist. It also won the Booker Prize in 2018. So I had really high expectations!
In some ways, it met those expectations, it being an impressive work of literature and storytelling that transports and illuminates. The opening line blew me away and will make my list for all-time favorite first sentences. I read it over so many times I can recite it from memory:
The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.
The story takes place in an unnamed time and place that we come to understand is based on Belfast, Ireland during the height of the political conflict known as The Troubles in the 1970s. The community is fiercely divided between the state and the renouncers, where even going to the hospital is dangerous because the police might question you so the renouncers will think you’re a spy and kill you. No one is trusted, nothing foreign is allowed, no cracks in anyone’s facade can show.
The narrator of the story is middle sister, who does everything she can to mentally distance herself from the political situation. She reads while walking, she conveniently forgets inconvenient experiences, and she is genuinely never curious about anything because she does not wish to change her world.
Then a man known as the milkman (who isn’t a milkman but really a paramilitary man who’s feared and respected among the renouncers) notices her and stops to chat. A rumor that she’s his mistress absolutely flies off the rails until it might as well be true for the way her life is altered. And her refusal to defend herself as she keeps her head down doesn’t help anything.
The book dances around a lot of big themes, like violence against women, gender roles, the danger of staying silent, and the fear of allowing yourself to be happy (because what if it’s then lost).
Ultimately, I appreciated this one more than I enjoyed it; I just think I wasn’t in the right headspace for the dense, meandering narrative style. But at the same time, I can see how and why that exact style won this book its awards. Middle sister takes pages to say one paragraph’s worth, in a sort of stream of consciousness style. It took a lot of concentration and energy to move through the book, which made it a slow movement forward.
I would have been interested to read this book as a short story, actually. I could see her starting with the same opening line, detailing the opening encounters with the milkman, and then concluding with the scene in the bathroom that the opening foreshadows. All in all, though, I’m really glad I read this one. It feels like a modern classic.
Trigger Warnings
Stalking / dating violence
Animal cruelty / animal death
Suicide
Body hatred
Mental illness
Homophobia and heterosexism
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