The Voyage Home

Reviews

Extremely gory and surprisingly funny, with plenty of gruff wit . . . Few living British novelists write as well about the collateral damage of war as Pat Barker. The Voyage Home is the third novel in her brilliantly subversive and ever-relevant reimagining of The Iliad . . . and it shows how a Bronze Age story can hold up a mirror to the inequities of our modern world Brilliant, masterful, strikingly accomplished . . . few come close to matching the sharp perspicacity and profound humanity of Pat Barker . . . this bloody tale has reverberated down the ages. With her characteristic blend of brusque wisdom and piercing compassion, Barker remakes it for our times In her thrilling retelling of the stories of Cassandra and Clytemnestra, Barker conjures up a world stained by the grief of mothers and daughters. Agamemnon’s palace is the stuff of nightmares, a world of suspicion and fear, plagued by the ghosts of innocents The Voyage Home brings forgotten female characters into sharp psychological focus. It is astonishingly fresh and modern, bristling with anger, and breezily quick to read. Pat Barker is one of the finest novelists working today Stirring and colourful . . . Barker has a genius for world-building. Ritsa is our viewpoint into an ancient civilisation brought carefully to life A remarkable series of novels . . . Pat Barker’s Trojan War books are a visceral experience, made all the more affecting for being told from the perspective of the women involved rather than the warriors and gods we’re used to Rich and electrifying . . . The Voyage Home’s storytelling is focused, propulsive and firmly contemporary, plotting a gripping route through Homer’s source material to expose the ripple effects of male violence and destruction A gritty Greek Game of Thrones . . . Agamemnon’s fateful return home reads like a blockbuster in the colourful third instalment of Barker’s women-centred Trojan wars series A novelist matchless in her imaginative and informed response to war A tale for our time, wonderfully written . . . The Voyage Home lays out the contingency of power: how fickle it is, how readily it ditches its host and moves elsewhere. It lays out both the banality of evil, and the grace that appears in the lives of everyday people Expand reviews