‘Blow Your House Down is swift, spare and utterly absorbing – you’ll probably read it, as I did, in one tense sitting’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘A courageous and disturbing novel’ ELIZABETH WARD, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
‘Despite its black humour, it is a deeply political book’ BELINDA WEBB, GUARDIAN
A serial killer stalks prostitutes with profound and unexpected consequences in this riveting novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Ghost Road.
A city and its people are in the grip of a killer who is roaming the northern city, singling out prostitutes. The face of his latest victim stares out from every newspaper and billboard, haunting the women who walk the streets. But life and work go on. Brenda, with three children, can’t afford to give up while Audrey, now in her forties, desperately goes on ‘working the cars’.
And then, when another woman is savagely murdered, Jean, her lover, takes desperate measures . . .
‘A courageous and disturbing novel’ ELIZABETH WARD, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
‘Despite its black humour, it is a deeply political book’ BELINDA WEBB, GUARDIAN
A serial killer stalks prostitutes with profound and unexpected consequences in this riveting novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Ghost Road.
A city and its people are in the grip of a killer who is roaming the northern city, singling out prostitutes. The face of his latest victim stares out from every newspaper and billboard, haunting the women who walk the streets. But life and work go on. Brenda, with three children, can’t afford to give up while Audrey, now in her forties, desperately goes on ‘working the cars’.
And then, when another woman is savagely murdered, Jean, her lover, takes desperate measures . . .
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Reviews
Swift, spare, and utterly absorbing ... [Barker] makes us see her characters from within ... and thereby reveals the full individuality and humanity of women who have got short shrift both in literature and in life
Barker's talent for gently sifting through the hidden depths of the human psyche is awesome
Barker's creative vision is as in touch with the psychologically primordial as Melville's
A courageous and disturbing novel
Inspired by the reign of the Yorkshire Ripper, it raised a theme that would later rear its head in the media coverage of the Ipswich murders - how the serial killer is often mythologised with a label, whereas the women are just "prostitutes". Despite its black humour, it is a deeply political book
Mrs. Barker's feminist argument is clear enough - sexual violence puts all women at risk, there are no ''good'' women and ''bad'' women, the victim of a sex crime is herself treated as a criminal
