Union Street

by Pat Barker

Overview

'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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780349009223
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date:	10/27/2016
Series:	Virago Modern Classics , #43
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	554,325
File size:	238 KB

About the Author

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.

Hometown:

Durham, England

Date of Birth:

May 8, 1943

Place of Birth:

Thornaby-on-Tees, England

Education:

London School of Economics; Durham University

Editorial Reviews

''UNION STREET,'' Pat Barker's first novel, is set in the early 1970's in an unnamed city in England's industrial Northeast....Miss Barker skillfully employs the factory setting to touch on matters like automation, race prejudice, feeblemindedness and the sheer human hardship experienced by some of those trapped on the assembly line....Her novel is divided into seven sections, each named for a particular female....Together, the seven sections explore every permutation and nuance (both within and outside the desperate social milieu that is this author's artistic capital) of growing up, growing old, making do, making a living....All in all, Pat Barker gives the sense of a writer who has enormous power that she has scarcely had to tap to write a first-rate first novel. I'm glad this book was published here and look forward to reading her next. -- New York Times

Ivan Gold