The Daughter Ship

A Novel

By: Boo Trundle

Narrated by: Xe Sands, Justis Bolding, Michael Crouch, Ann Marie Gideon, Dawn Harvey, Cassandra Morris, Sara Morsey

This irreverent debut delivers a headlong human comedy of trauma and triumph, narrated by the concealed inner selves of a woman on the brink: Katherine, a lost creative soul and suburban mother of two, who has struggled into her forties with the urge to self-harm.

"Tracks the scattered parts of one woman as she fractures and finds herself over the course of her lifetime. A wholly original and unforgettable debut." —Julia Phillips, best-selling author of Disappearing Earth

Katherine, an attentive mother to her teenagers, comfortably married to her strapping provider of a husband, longs to overcome her dark thoughts and intermittent fears of sexual intimacy.

This brisk, mesmerizing version of her life is told in alternating short chapters by Truitt, Star, and Smooshed Bug—her inner children, each with their particular strategy for coping with Katherine’s past at the hands of a hopeless mother and a terrifying, seductive father. Several of her female ancestors, Confederate widows and their daughters, who’ve imposed a legacy of racism and damage on her bloodline, also join the telling.

The assembled ghosts and contenders for Katherine’s ear are gathered in a rusting WWII submarine off the coast of Virginia Beach where the truth of her life is, quite literally, submerged. Will they surface with it? Will they protect her from it, or deliver it to her?

This unforgettable chorus of charming selves, battling over Katherine’s wellbeing, is unified by their hope for her future, as they collaborate to shape a personal narrative like no other we’ve experienced in fiction.

©2023 Boo Trundle (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Trundle’s book is as cheekily humorous as it is deadly serious, a chaotic performance art piece wearing a novel as a disguise . . . A wildly strange reading experience that disorients and exhilarates in equal measure.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Wild as stormy water, turbulent as a human heart, The Daughter Ship is a novel like none you've ever read before. It tracks the scattered parts of one woman as she fractures and finds herself over her lifetime. Boo Trundle is a deep, dark, far-seeing storyteller, who has written a wholly original and unforgettable debut.” —Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth (National Book Award Finalist)

“This brilliant first novel is about liberation from the past and from whatever keeps us in the past. We circle around it until we glimpse, along with the narrators, the source of this jangly unease—stars, memories, clouds? Marriage, pills, sex? In the end it’s about one moment when we get to say who we are and where we come from and to see it all as golden. Prepare to devour this book.” —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Triggering Content

Although this story is a work of fiction, it relates to many very serious themes of childhood sexual abuse, neglect and trauma as well as really encompassing the feeling of dissociation. I have D.I.D and am struggling with these themes myself. And this is what it is like in my experience. The framing device is nuanced, the performances by the narrators was spot on and story was deep. If you want a tear jerker- but a fictional one- this book is a good choice. Just be warned, there are some very graphic description of things in there that are NSFW or for little ears. But this will be heading straight to my favorites list.

So accurate

I am someone who is recovering from repressed childhood abuse resurfacing and doing parts work. I've never read a more real account of the feeling world I've been forced to experience..Thank you so much for writing this book..I felt like a large part of it was putting words and framework to my own. It was very healing

Powerful concept

Boo Trundle creates the experience of the main character’s inner world. Trundle takes the complicated experience of PTSD and childhood trauma and makes it understandable, Not quite a multiple personality she shows the character’s inner dialogue as she grapples with the memory of childhood abuse. She renders a perfect portrait of the conflict to remember and not wanting to remember. We see the character’s external life and the impact of the abuse on present day relationships.
Sometimes it was tough read, but so brilliantly rendered it is worth the effort.

Sad...

Sad story. Multiple characters, Difficult to follow required undivided attention.
I hope this is based on more fiction than fact.