Union Street
Regular price
€16.99
'Vivid, bawdy and bitter' THE TIMES
'A first-rate first novel . . . pungent, raunchy dialogue . . . passages of fine understated wit' IVAN GOLD, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Pat Barker's first novel shows the women of Union Street, young and old, meeting the harsh challeges of poverty and survival in a precarious world.
There's Kelly, at eleven, neglected and independent, dealing with a squalid rape; Dinah, knocking on sixty and still on the game; Joanne, not yet twenty, not yet married and already pregnant. Old Alice is welcoming her impending death whilst Muriel helplessly watches the decline of her stoical husband.
And linking them all, watching over them all, mother to half the street, is fiery, indomitable Iris.
Pat Barker was born in 1943. She was chosen in 1983 as one of the twenty 'Best of Young British' novelists and won the Booker Prize with The Ghost Road in 1995. In 2000, she received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her contribution to the literary world. Her work focuses on survival, tragedy and hope. She lives in Durham.