Another World

Summary

Booker Prize-winning author Pat Barker is one of Britain's most powerful contemporary novelists. This eerie story of a troubled family in the north of England lets you experience the full force of Barker's original talent. Filled with startling images and incisive character studies, Another World reveals an uncanny reality where emotions and events from the past resurface in the present. Nick, his pregnant wife, their unruly toddler, and angry stepchildren have just moved into a Gothic manor in a rough part of Newcastle. Working unhappily together to fix up their living room, they discover an alarming portrait of a Victorian family beneath the old wallpaper. As the sins of that family seep into their lives, Nick must tend to his dying grandfather, who is dealing with his own past failures. Barker skillfully weaves these dark threads together until unspeakable violence seems ready to explode from every scene. Narrator Steven Crossley's mesmerizing performance highlights the novel's haunting quality and the intriguing questions it raises about part, present, and memory.