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Union Street

Union Street

Author(s): Pat Barker

Location(s): Cleveland (UK)

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): 20th Century

Location

Content

Vivid, bawdy and bitter’ (The Times), 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, welcoming her impending death: Muriel helplessly watching the decline of her stoical husband. And linking them all, watching over them all, mother to half the street, is fiery, indomitable Iris.

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Book Reviews

Lead Review

The author describes three generations of Union Street dwellers, a bleak street of small, workers cottages, somewhere in the North East of England. Depressing and ‘grim up north’ but soooo evocative – TessaD300 –

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