Border Crossing - Pat Barker

Being a bit of a Pat Barker fan I was pleased to discover this one on 'read it swap it' recently as I had never got around to reading it. The blurb was great; according to the Independent it would keep me up 'blurry eyed and exhausted until 2am'. Great, but I already have a baby, so I'll just read it a bit at a time thanks. Anyway, it begins promisingly with the opening scene being a walk along the banks of the Tyne, familiar ground for me. I do like to read books that are set in areas of the country I know quite well, provided they are well written of course and booker winning Barker has never failed to be that. The main character, Tom, is a child ...  Read the complete review

My younger brother Duncan, a history professor, introduced me to the works of Pat Barker he reads fictional history for enjoyment and shares his favourite authors with me. I first read one of her earlier books over a year ago and I now possess four books by this very talented author. Pat Barker was born in Thornaby-on Tees on the 8th of May 1943, educated at the London school of Economics she has been a teacher of both History and Politics. Best known for her “Regeneration Series” of books which won two Booker prizes her first works threatened to type-cast her as a writer of Feminist novels. Inspired by the stories of both her own mother’s and grandmother’s struggles to ...  Read the complete review

Tom Seymour is a child psychiatrist, and one Saturday morning he finds himself walking along a riverbank with his wife Lauren, discussing the breakdown of their marriage, when they see a young man dive in, apparently in an attempt to commit suicide. Tom jumps in and rescues him. That evening, Tom goes to visit the lad in hospital and recognizes him as Danny Miller - who thirteen years earlier, at the age of ten, was convicted of the murder of an old woman. It was Tom whose assessment of the young Danny led to him being tried in an adult court, and it was Tom whose evidence turned the jury against Danny. Coincidence? Tom has his doubts. ...  Read the complete review