Union Street: Pat Barker

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.