Milkman is not an easy read, but put the work in and you will reap its rewards.
Milkman is not an easy read, but put the work in and you will reap its rewards.
Set in an unnamed town in Northern Ireland during the Troubles – the environment in which Burns grew up – Milkman showcases the experience of living in a community in tense political turmoil. It follows a narrator who finds herself with a stalker, ‘Milkman’, a renowned ‘renouncer of the state’ in her area (not a spoiler – promise).
Encounters with this stalker drive the plot throughout the novel, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that Milkman is therefore an action-packed, fast-paced pageturner. It’s not. Instead, it’s a dense exploration of a girl’s mind, when an intrusive community, wrought with polarised political views, a propensity for rumours and a tendency to blame women, makes her feel entirely isolated.
Burns showcases the very real dangers of both asserting one’s individuality and desire and following the status quo.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of reading Milkman is the entire lack of specifics. We learn neither the main character’s name, nor the vast majority of characters – in fact, the entire setting of the novel relies on inference. Throughout, the narrator is referred to only as ‘middle sister’. It takes some getting used to.
But by withholding details, Burns is able to showcase how boundaries can blur between the individual and collective, in such a judgmental, severely polarised, politically intense – and violent – community.
Understanding the experience of a young, Northern-Irish girl navigating life during the Troubles alone makes Milkman worth the read. But for me, one of Milkman’s most illuminating aspects is the parallels it exposes to our own world. Look out for how much political significance, and dangerous meaning, is attached to the symbol of a flag.
While historical, the novel also feels strangely dystopian, and scarily close.