Pat Barker, the celebrated 81-year-old author honoured with the CBE, made her Zoom appearance surrounded by various musical instruments in a vibrant, electric-blue room. Contrary to what one might expect from an acclaimed author and scholar of the ancient-Greek classics, her backdrop was not lined with leather-bound volumes of antiquity. Using her son-in-law’s study, a space usually reserved for music lessons in their Durham village in North England, she wryly remarked on the often ostentatious, untouched collection of classical literature commonly on show in video calls.
Barker herself regularly revisits Homer’s Iliad, specifically focusing on the captivating character of Achilles and his encounters with Priam, King of Troy. The Iliad serves as inspiration for her most recent three-part series, with the latest installment being “The Voyage Home”. However, not all parts of this ancient epic are equally gripping – Barker readily admits the exhaustive listing of Greek warships can be a bit mundane.
Her trilogy, which adds to the Iliad’s narrative by exploring the stories of the enslaved Trojan women following Troy’s downfall, began with “The Silence of the Girls”. This novel was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018. Following its success, Barker published the best-selling “The Women of Troy” in 2021.
The character that Barker is currently drawn to in “The Voyage Home” is Cassandra, the prophetic daughter of the Trojan King Priam. Her interest in the character arises from the curious interaction between the famously indecorous Greek god Apollo and Cassandra. Apollo, known for his disregard for objections, did not end Cassandra’s life when she rebuffed him. Instead, he chose to condemn her, an interesting decision considering her royalty and religious station.
The story is predominantly told from the perspective of Ritsa, the “body-slave” of Cassandra, whose duties include managing her episodes of “divine mania” and keeping her prepared as King Agamemnon’s kept woman. Ritsa, also a healer, has lost her adolescent daughter to the “sweating sickness” and is closest to Briseis, the character who offers the narrative in the preceding two books. Despite being a pure work of fiction, Barker asserts, there certainly were body-slaves in ancient Greece, albeit it’s doubtful they were referred to as “catch-farts”, a term originating from 18th-century jargon, she adds playfully. The novel The Voyage Home, like its precursors, intentionally employs anachronisms.
Queen Clytemnestra, in contrast, is waiting back in Mycenae for Agamemnon’s return. She’s Helen of Troy’s unadorned twin sister who has plotted retaliation against her husband for the last decade for the murder of their oldest daughter, Iphigenia, whom he sacrificed in exchange for favourable winds for Troy. The palace is laden with a foreboding ambience due to it being haunted by the spirits of three boys murdered by Atreus, Agamemnon’s father, in retribution for his brother. Barker contends, while revenge may not be entirely fruitless, it certainly has a repetitive pattern.
Cassandra’s prophesying without being taken seriously is another manifestation of the “girls’ silence”. Barker, a fundamentally auditory writer, hears her character’s voices, sometimes very long after the book is published. She compares writing conversations to “carving out silence”: “you begin with silence, voices emerge from this silence and then they are absorbed back into it,” she articulates. Barker particularly enjoys writing dialogue, so much so that it becomes her gauge if a project is progressing well. She explains, “if the voices aren’t present, there’s no life in my work and it’s pointless to proceed… It’s as if you’re checking breath on a mirror: if a breath doesn’t fog the mirror, there’s no use attempting resuscitation – they’re lost.”
British author Barker discovered her true writing style only during her late 30s, post an Arvon seminar led by her mentor Angela Carter. Barker tried previously to create works that mimicked the widely celebrated “sensitive books,” only to face rejection from publishers. It was Angela Carter who forwarded the manuscript of Union Street to Carmen Callil at Virago, a book that narrated stories of working-class women in northern England, printed in 1982. Callil became Barker’s publisher till 1991 when Barker published ‘Regeneration.’ Barker then switched to Viking Penguin, where her loyal agent Clare Alexander was an editor.
Barker gained significant recognition with the ‘Regeneration’ trilogy that centred around World War One soldiers’ trauma. The last book of the trilogy, named The Ghost Road, earned her the Man Booker Prize in 1995. Barker compares winning the award to winning an Oscar, although she suggests the best literature of the year might even miss the shortlist. Regardless of the achievements, Barker feels an author hasn’t fully ‘arrived,’ insisting that an author is as good as the final paragraph they have written. She amusingly adds that if the author is writing a rough draft, which she advises, the final paragraph is always dismal.
Being brought up by a single mother and grandparents, Barker found the mystery of her father’s identity sparking her writing interest. Her mother’s elusive and sometimes bizarre claims about her father bolstered this interest. Barker believes that what excites writers is not the essence of the plot but the lies, the secrets and the silence surrounding them. She applauds John le Carré for his wise take on such mysteries, as his father often indulged in weaving fantasies and presented a superficial front. She feels ultimately, to see behind such facades, authors must write their way through.
Lastly, Barker shares an amusing anecdote about a persistent reporter camping outside her home, pressuring her to comment on Jane Fonda’s decision to get a breast augmentation.
Penning the first two instalments of the series was a straightforward process, but “The Voyage Home” was sculpted in the crucible of adversity — initially the Covid-19 pandemic, then personal health struggles and a change of residence. Barker expresses that forming a sympathetic bond with the protagonist Cassandra during the creation of the novel was a challenge. Cassandra, feeling obligated to carry out a fate involving nuptials and death with Agamemnon followed by the collapse of the kingdom that ruined Troy, lends her story an appealing, definitive conclusion. Nevertheless, her role is submissive, which doesn’t allow readers to connect; Ritsa and Clytemnestra, with their potential for a joyful resolution and superior potency, are more approachable characters.
While the film adaptation rights of “The Voyage Home” remain unclaimed, “The Silence of the Girls” is currently being transformed into a script by Emma Thompson. Barker had the opportunity to review the draft and praised it as nothing less than outstanding. She also reflected on the anomalies of adaptations and mentioned her rare encounters with gossip journalists during the filming of Stanley and Iris in 1990. An incident where a reporter insisted on her opinion about Jane Fonda’s aesthetic surgery stood out. Barker’s reluctant contribution was to defend Fonda’s private choices.
Barker revealed that a fourth book highlighting women of the bronze age is potentially on the horizon, although it’s not her immediate focus as she contemplates three alternative projects. The quandary her character Briseis grapples with over loving a child born out of non-consensual intercourse, as highlighted in “The Woman of Troy”, is a subject that intrigues her. Everyone around Briseis has personal interests in the child due to its imagined lineage from Achilles. The child’s own desires, or those of its mother, are inconceivable and seemingly irrelevant to them. This scenario strikes Barker as an interesting narrative to explore further.
Barker is understandably eager for her computer to be back in operation soon. This autumn, at the Durham Book Festival, she looks forward to showcasing ‘The Voyage Home’. During the event, her son-in-law plans to play melodies inspired by the book whilst actors from the Northern Stage bring excerpts to life. With an impressive 16 novels credited to her, the fun lies in deviating away from the commonplace book launch which she admits to experiencing more times than she can count. This will be a refreshing change. The publishing of ‘The Voyage Home’ will be undertaken by Hamish Hamilton on the 22nd of August, Thursday.