Union Street

by Pat Barker

Alternate cover edition of ISBN13 9780860682837

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.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical, Novels, British Literature, Literature

265 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Pat Barker is an English writer known for her fiction exploring themes of memory, trauma, and survival. She gained prominence with Union Street (1982), a stark portrayal of working-class women's lives, and later achieved critical acclaim with the Regeneration Trilogy (1991–1995), a series blending history and fiction to examine the psychological impact of World War I. The final book, The Ghost Road (1995), won the Booker Prize. In recent years, she has turned to retelling classical myths from a female perspective, beginning with The Silence of the Girls (2018). Barker's work is widely recognized for its direct and unflinching storytelling.

Reviews

[Bill Muganda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Different women facing different life struggles and the only thing they have in common is the street they all occupy...

This was dark and it was really depressing to see what these women are going through my god!! Pat Barker took me there, she didn't hold out the punches when it came to discussing the subject matter. It was realistic and that made it even scarier, it was fascinating to see how different individuals live their day to day lives.



The book in itself reads like a short story compilation but the characters are connected one way or another through gossip, close relations etc. We follow a bunch of different women who live in Union Street which is stricken with poverty and they have to survive a harsh winter. The author spends time with each woman in each chapter as they face very difficult situations from Rape, Abortions, Early Marriages, Abusive relationships, Racism, complex family drama, death and so much more. 

I was in love with the way the story was told because we focused on a character and magnified their personality that you could feel them through the pages. It was a bit weird to transition from one character to another but once you understood what the author was doing the book flowed so well. This doesn't follow the trope for " the happy ending or problems solved sort of contemporary "



This was dark and realistic each character had a heart and a complexity that rarely comes across in most books. It was a clear and horrific picture of what normal women go through and they still persevere because of the strong love for family, themselves and the community in general and I was so happy to finally read this I can't wait to read more of this author. I HIGHLY recommend it.

[Wilma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rauw...keihard...mooi en intens...worden de levensverhalen van zeven meisjes/vrouwen, woonachtig in een afbraakbuurt van een Noordengelse industriestad, verteld. Levensecht en met humor doorspekte verhalen, raken je recht in je ziel. Aanrader!!

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! What an amazing book. Union Street should be required reading for men of all ages (16+). Seriously. I dare any man to read a book like this and then give shit to a woman. Why are books like these not part of compulsory reading in curriculums around the world? And why the hell is this book not more popular on Goodreads?

Raw, bleak, gritty… the heroines of this book are the down and out women dealing with the hardships of everyday life, often with nothing more than having to survive day by day. The book is made up of the individual stories of seven women, each taking up a chapter. The chapters are uneven in length, which is perfect because they are only as long as needed to be. Barker has a talent for showing her characters from the first word to the last. The chapters are organized by the ages of the working-class women, starting with Kelly Brown at eleven-years-old, and ending with Alice Bell in her seventies. The poverty and abuse rampant in these women’s’ lives because of men is staggering and bone-chilling. The structure of the novel works well, with different characters sometimes appearing in different chapters, often in passing, giving the individual stories a full-roundedness. It is never easy to construct stories in this way, it requires finesse and a sharp mind, but it really is a gift to a reader when done well.

I do not want to go into the individual stories because it would not be possible to do so without spoilers, and as I am hoping more people will read this book, I want you to experience it unaware as I did. Trust me, these are women’s stories written by a woman who I cannot help but feel has shared some of the difficult themes covered like poverty, hopelessness, and abuse. The writing is concise and urgent. The voice is sober and stark. The effect is profound.

It had been decided that the child should be brought up to regard its grandmother as its mother, and its mother as its sister. At first this seemed to work well. Lilian went to the cake factory to work. Her mother, with no apparent reluctance, stayed at home to take care of the child. It was a little girl, very pretty—unlike Lilian who had never been attractive, even as a child, and who now became increasingly slovenly. The grandmother doted on the child. The three of them could often be seen walking down Union Street together: an elderly woman with hair crimped into neat, stiff waves like corrugated iron; the child skipping on ahead, her hair worn, as Lilian wore hers, in little bunches at either side of her head; and Lilian herself, bringing up the rear.
This situation dragged on for some years. It was obvious to everybody that there was no longer a place for Lilian in the home—to everybody, that is, except Lilian herself. She hung on, desperately, fawningly, trying to ingratiate herself. Then, suddenly, she was pregnant again. Nobody knew who by. This time her mother’s attitude was entirely different. She refused to even look at the baby. When it became clear that this time she would not accept the child, Lilian gave it up for adoption, almost casually it seemed, and returned home alone. But now her exclusion from the family group became more obvious. The child, without understanding anything of what had happened, knew nevertheless that her ‘big sister’ was in disgrace. Her little voice could be heard, piping censoriously, whenever Lilian did something wrong, which was certainly not seldom. From the moment she returned from the hospital without the second child, Lilian began to deteriorate.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are the stories of eight women, all of whom lived on Union Street. Though I had hard times when my children were young, I never had it as hard as the women on Union Street.

Her last house had had a bathroom and an indoor lavatory, with a little strip of green out the back. She'd had a bay window in the front room, too.

You take these things for granted till you haven't got them. The descent to Union Street was bitter.

Some of the women had moved up to Union Street from Wharfe Street, the worst street in town. Each of the chapters could be read on their own, but this is a novel and the stories are inter-connected with some of the characters seen in the other stories. the Wilsons lived a few doors down from the Browns on the other side of Union Street .... Muriel Scaife was the mother of Sharon, a friend of Kelly Brown. Iris King was a home worker who visited Alice Bell. Everyone knew everyone else's business - it was its own small town in the midst of a city.

This is the Pat Barker who authored the award-winning series, Regeneration. The prose of this debut novel is just as good as those. The characterizations are also quite good, though perhaps the novel's construction didn't allow her as much room for development as they might have needed. For this reason only, I'm not going to give it 5-stars.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was harsh.

[Dave J · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was one of the toughest books I've ever read. Actually I didn't finish it, I found it too depressing. I come from the North East and am old enough to just about recognise the general street scene portrayed but I would have had only glimpses of the lives of working class women of the era. Looking at it with political spectacles on, while I'm not doubting that there are women with lives like that nowadays, it felt like a bygone era and I felt like a voyeur. In contrast, in the same week I read it I saw "I, Daniel Blake" at the cinema. The film portrayed similar lives in the same North East setting a few decades on. It was inspiring. Suggest see the film rather than read the book.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pat Barker's debut is a far cry away from the more recent Greek retellings she's perhaps become best known for. However at its heart it still speaks of the unspoken issues women have faced and continue to face, regardless of when and where.

Union Street is set in a typical working class 1970s street in North East England. It's a street repeated up and down Britain, and features every stereotypical woman you would expect to find here. The young woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. The young girl left to her own devices, leading to unforgivable trauma, while her mother drinks. The woman left to raise a family while her husband drinks. There are the stories kept behind closed doors, known but not spoken of, whispered and never confronted.

Union Street is a gritty and hard read. At times I had to walk away to digest what I'd read, but ultimately I wanted to continue and read each woman's story and savour their chance to shine. Pat Barker knows how to develop characters and give them heart, especially Iris. She's a woman who creeps into everyone else's chapters. A mother to everyone, who outwardly appears hard but has been forced that way due to survive. She's a proud woman, but loves her girls deeply and will do anything and everything to help them. Her story, and that of Brenda, is particularly harrowing to read.

Due to the nature of this being a series of interconnected stories, some I found more engaging than others. Kelly, Lisa and Iris' were my personal favourites, possibly due to the very nature of their stories.

Lots of triggers, and lost to think about. This has definitely brought my mood down, and although it was a quick read I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to most people due to it's hard content. Life as a working class woman was, and continues to be, really difficult. I count myself lucky for the time and space I live in.

[Aldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reminded me of Call the Midwife at times, but entirely stripped of that wholesome glow. Pat Barker isn't here to spare anyone the gruesome details of her characters' suffering. To be honest, when I started the book I was not sure of the time - it could have been the 50s or even 30s or earlier rather than the 70s. The whole thing seems contained, outside of time and wholly removed from the progress happening elsewhere. A raw, stark depiction of how dignity and hope are ground down by poverty and lack of choices, but there was compassion there as well and the characters were well drawn. Not what I'd call a pleasant read but certainly impactful.

CW: Rape of a child, kitchen table abortion, violence against women, graphic illness, homelessness

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak but moving book. Pat Barker's first novel explores the lives and struggles of a group of women in the same ordinary street. Each chapter tells the story of one woman, and these stories are loosely linked.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top top! Històries dures i que fan esgarrifar, però m'han enganxat molt. M'ha agradat molt que les dones dels diferents relats estiguin relacionades les unes amb les altres (al cap i a la fi, viuen totes al mateix carrer). Cada dona viu la seva vida i la seva pròpia història, però hi ha patrons que comparteixen, fruit de pertànyer a la mateixa classe social. Que dur, tot plegat, però que ben narrat.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was like Dubliners, if Dubliners was written in the 1980s about English women living in poverty in the 1970s, and it didn't suck.

Ahaha, Joyce fans, shoot me now. But there's no love lost between me and James Joyce.

Moving on... it was very interesting structurally. The writing was peppered with some colloquial syntax/diction, but not so much that it overpowered the story - it wasn't like trying to read Trainspotting (which I had to read out loud to myself). But the structure - it told the stories of seven different women who all lived on Union Street, and went in order from youngest to oldest, sort of tying the stories together as the characters ran into each other in minor situations (in the supermarket, finding something on the street another character had left behind, etc.). But what really links them is the way their stories blend, almost seamlessly, in the squalor of everyday poverty and in the downtrodden, desperate roles that are the only life available to the women. Their choices don't matter because really, they don't have any choices - they are inevitably going to end up pregnant, forced to marry the father, abused, poor, and they'll eventually die. The end, that's all, go kill yourself now. See why it reminds me of Dubliners?

Well, that's not entirely fair - I'm not doing justice to this story. It's actually incredibly good, presenting some really challenging issues, and the structure - that's what blows me away. Don't let my hatred of Dubliners deter you from reading this. It's definitely worth a look, especially if you're interested in contemporary fiction or postmodern realism (oxymoron that it is...).

[Aimee Massey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like the "word" "meh" but I'm finding myself wanting to use it in this review.
"Union Street" is the second Pat Barker book I've read, and probably the last. So much of it felt like a rehash/rework of "Blow Down Your House" which I liked pretty well. I understand other books by Barker are different, but for right now I just don't care to investigate them.
Barker has a message, of sorts, but whatever it is is not very startling and it gets across pretty quickly, so that the rest of the book feels like a slog. The message, if you can call it that, is something like "Women have it really terrible in the crummy Yorkshire streets." Wow, that's breaking news.
And Barker pushes this message too hard, so that all her female characters are pathetic and all the male characters are evil, except one, and she kills him offl. Come on, let's evolve a little bit.
And her unflinching descriptions of rape, childbirth, and amateur abortion lack the impact that they should have, because you get the weird feeling that Barker is not so much using the images to color the story, but that she's sneering at what she believes is a pearl-clutching, sheltered reader.
I don't know about you, but I don't like being taken for a fool by an author.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barker ens presenta històries de diferents dones que s’entrelliguen i que, a més de ser veïnes, tenen en comú que van sobradíssimes de dignitat. No és una novel·la amable. Són dones de la perifèria que lluiten diàriament per sobreviure en una societat que les invisibilitza. No esperen ser salvades; són fortes i sobreviuen com bonament poden en un entorn que ho posa més que difícil. És una novel·la dura i colpidora, de les que no deixa indiferent. Els homes hi tenen un total de -1000 punts de protagonisme, però són part del problema en la majoria dels relats, que tot i no ser tan llargs com una novel·la, són profunds i intensos. Us la recomano molt, però agafeu-la sent conscients que no passareu una bona estona💔

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time deciding between three and four stars on this, but ended up settling for the latter. Why? Well, this is an extremely captivating and genuine-feeling book about the struggles of seven very different working-class women. Even though their background is very different from the place I come from, I could empathize with their feelings very well and bring up sympathy even for the most "difficult" character. At times it was hard to read though, not even for the subject matter (which I knew about going in) but for the many mentions of bodily fluids, wounds and a very questionable abortion happening in a kitchen. However, these were elements of things happening that have to be talked about, despite not being "pleasurable" enough for people from a privileged background.
All in all, this book is a really great read and makes you think; it raises awareness that even today and in the "Western World", there are people who got the very short end of the stick and that they still are trying to make the best of what they have.

[Richard Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. The story is about a half a dozen women living in the same street. All are at a different stage in their lives & consequently their problems are different. From the young teenager who is raped, to the old lady who is very sick & expects to die soon. Pat Barker seems to get inside the minds of all of her heroines & has an easy stile that is very readable.

[E. seaberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read about this book in the Lennie Goodman book about the feminist publishing house VIrago, A Bite of the Apple, and had to find it. I love Pat Barker, and this book did not change that whatsoever. Brutal and beautifully human cycle portaying women on one street, poverty stricken, in England in the 1970s. I would not have known it was the 70s, I think, unless I had double checked. Despair is everywhere, but so too is kindness, and reflection, and hope. This is Barker's first novel. I recommend it heartily.

[DAISY DAWSON · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great idea and well written but very bleak.

[Grace Lilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me way too long to finish this absolutely phenomenal book. I want to read everything Pat Barker has ever written now. The slice of life vignettes of these women’s lives and how they all overlap and come together could not have been done better. The last chapter hit extremely close to home and was devastating and beautiful and I think i will think about it forever.
“These fragments. Were they the debris of her own or other lives? She had been so many women in her time”.
Love this quote, love this book, I think everyone should read it. Thank you and goodnight.

[AdelaSM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un retrat i una crítica social dels anys 80 que bé podriem traslladar a dia d'avui. Relat punyent i molt recomanable. I exemple clar de que la meritocràcia no existeix, sinó que està marcada per la situació que t'ha tocat viure

[gorecki · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a street in every city that remains dark and unwelcoming no matter how much light you shine on it. It’s a street with coldness lurking in the corners, where everything is either too loud or too muffled. Where everyone knows how hunger blooms in you and how it grows, how a fist softens you and how it blows, and how a life can be knitted together and then unravelled a single thread to be pulled out of you. This street is usually a place where children don’t laugh, but sneer, and where everything is being compared: someone has it worse, someone has it better, or someone else doesn’t have it at all. It being dignity, happiness, food, something to live for, if not to fight for, because they’re fighting all the time anyway, aren’t they?

Union Street is such a street: one full of women at various stages of breaking. It’s a book full of violence and trigger warnings, cold as the northern English town it takes place in. Pat Barker doesn’t spare her characters any misery or pain. Reading it in the short dark days of winter was an engulfing experience, when the cold of the book meets the coldness of the empty train stop, or the dark street outside the window. I could hear Kelly roaming the street restlessly, Alice sitting on her bench, and Irish wiping Brenda’s brow. Because this book really is about all of them, all the women of Union street, from child to octogenarian, it’s about the street, really, and all of their stories of rape, molestation, domestic abuse, wanted and unwanted babies, wanted and unwanted abortions, about being a woman in the cold and in the cruel and in the grime, united by pain on Union Street, because what is a union if not being stuck together for better or worse, which usually means for worse, because there is a street in every city where the notion of things getting better only exists to make things bearable. And even that only barely.

[Saige · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a young reporter in the 1980s I interviewed women at different levels of prostitution from the streets to escort and to the higher level. I had no trouble finding those on the lower level. In those days, in spite of prostitution being illegal in my country (New Zealand), women from their teens upwards lined the streets. It shouldn't have surprised me that all the girls I interviewed had been abused, at the end of an interview I felt like adopting them. The sex was like another rape only they got paid and they disassociated through drugs or dreams because they had learned to switch off, to float from hell. And hell it was. The women working in agencies fared a little better but their aim was to provide for their children after broken marriages, after abuse. All the women I interviewed were articulate, lovely women, all the girls were girls I felt like adopting.
Pat Barker's books are the only books that ever came close to showing how class and poverty and abuse play a major role in the struggle for women. As I read Union Street I felt as though I had been punched in the head, and the gut. And sometimes I had to disconnect, to dream, to float away from the agony of the gritty mess of the street. But real it was, and I thank her for that, and I thank her for zooming in close, for showing the courage and the sadness and all that is wrong with life for women who don't have it easy from the start, middle or end.

[Patricia Vaccarino · Rating 5 out of 5]

The linked-stories of the seven women who live on working-class Union Street are raw, heartbreaking and unforgettable. Ms. Pat Barker spares no detail in providing the descriptions of the tragedies that befall each woman. The women of Union Street are among the English working poor, who live in hovels that are slightly better than ghetto tenements. Life could be worse, ain’t it so? The women will do whatever it takes to stay on Union Street and away from the flophouses and shanties of the nearby Wharfe. Loud and squawking like fishmongers, fighting for survival with the tenacity of peasants, these women do not fade quietly into the night. While the tragedy that befalls each woman is horrifying—the rape of a child, a backstreet abortion or the final stages of metastasized cancer—bodily fluids, human stench and misery conspire together to shock the reader into believing that there is no hope. The author’s writing is superb, but her characters who personify death, sickness, self-destruction, depravity and despair are never able to see beyond the confines of a very small block of row houses on Union Street. If only there was a way for the characters to have a vision of a way out of here. If only they had the chance to seek some form of redemption.

[Santi Alonso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una de las mejores novelas que he leído últimamente, y llegué a ella por casualidad en una librería de segunda mano.

Cartas a Iris ofrece un relato coral de las mujeres obreras británicas de finales de la década de los setenta, en un contexto de crisis social e industrial que precedería una de las épocas más opresivas de la Inglaterra contemporánea.

El papel de la mujer es el de siempre en cualquier contexto de crisis: precariedad, violencia, abandono, responsabilidad y cuidado familiar. Union Street no es solo una calle, sino un símbolo de toda esa lucha y resistencia femenina. A través de siete voces distintas, Barker ofrece vistazos de esas rutinas, creando un arco narrativo de lo más interesante que ofrece visiones desde la infancia (Katie) hasta la vejez (la señora Bell).

Todo esto, a través de un estilo crudo, sin pelos en la lengua, con diálogos brillantes y reflexiones para doblar las páginas.

¿Por qué no se ha dado más visibilidad a esta mujer?

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My best kind of book. Lots of vignettes of different families in one poor-ish street in Newcastle (I'd guess from the accent). So well and warmly described. A criticism could be that it's all fairly stereotypical ; hardworking downtrodden women holding too large families together by determination and humour while the men drink and are violent, or pathetic. However I loved it and the story of Alice Bell especially, was incredibly moving in its portrayal of an old woman slowly preparing for death, but still feeling inside like a sixteen year old girl. Old age will come to us all, as another woman in the book says.

[jojo]

for a northern lass this book cut me to my core, i think it toes the line of drowning in grit from time to time with very few moments of relief though it feels purposeful unlike something like modern corrie that is purely trying to one-up itself in misery porn to win awards
very believable and familiar character voices too
WHAT HAUNTS ME IS I DO NOT KNOW WHEN OR WHERE THIS IS ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE SET which i could understand if it's intentionally timeless but there are also hyper specific references and periodical details?? tell me i need to know

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrible, sharp, vicious book that cuts into your soul and finds your most vulnerable parts.
Content IS triggering, with rape, domestic abuse, and abortion. It is so raw and real. A very important book.

[Mònica Villanueva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relats que són mini novel·les sobre dones i noietes de classe obrera que tenen en comú el fet de viure a Union Street, un carrer a qualsevol ciutat industrial del Regne Unit. Són com pelis del Ken Loach abans del Ken Loach i en molts moments estan plens d'una aclaparadora tristesa.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read the first 50 pages and have to put it down. Not in the mood for super depressing, hopeless stories of deeply damaged people with no chance of anything ever improving.

[Pien · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25

[Anna Molsosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

a mi em funcionen molt els llibres tristos i bonics i aquest no ho és gens, és cru i real i les reaccions d'elles no són gens com "haurien de ser" i és simplement genial