In a World War I British military hospital, a pacifist soldier and his doctor grapple with the outrage of war. By the author of Union Street. Reprint.
Regeneration Series
This trilogy delves into the brutal realities of World War I, examining the trauma and psychological scars left on soldiers. It follows characters navigating the harsh conditions of the war zone, confronting both physical and mental suffering. The series serves as a powerful meditation on human resilience in the face of unimaginable violence and loss. It offers a poignant look at the profound individual impact of large-scale conflict.
Recommended Reading Order
The Eye in the Door
- 280 pages
- 10 hours of reading
'The year is now 1918 . . . In the climate of exhaustion and hysteria amid which the war is wearing to its close, pressures to fall into line become fierce and take ugly forms. At the forefront of her story, Barker places figures especially menaced by this: pacifists, conscientious objectors and homosexuals . . . a sequel every bit as unwaveringly intense and intelligent as its predecessor' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
The Ghost Road
- 277 pages
- 10 hours of reading
Winner of the Booker Prize, The Ghost Road is the brilliant conclusion to Pat Barker's World War I fiction trilogy, which began with the acclaimed and prize-winning novels Regeneration and The Eye in the Door . In the closing months of World War I, psychologist William Rivers treats the mental casualties of the war, making them whole enough to return to battle. As Dr. Rivers treats his patients, he begins to see the parallels between the culture of death in the tribes of the South Seas, where he served as a young missionary doctor, and in Europe in the grips of World War I. At the same time, Billy Prior, one of Dr. Rivers's patients, returns to France, where millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all "ghosts in the making," to fight a war he no longer believes in. Combining poetic intensity with gritty realism, Pat Barker both escapsulates history and transcends it in this modern masterpiece.
Related books
The Regeneration Trilogy
- 608 pages
- 22 hours of reading
Including all three novels in one volume, "Regeneration", "The Eye in the Door" and "The Ghost Road". The trilogy explores with gritty realism the whole dirty, glorious and horrifying business of war.