Another World

By: Pat Barker

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

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 past, present, and memory.

©2004 Pat Barker (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Thoughtful, acutely observed and profoundly moving....Barker mixes brilliantly observed contemporary realism and mystical overtones with dazzling skill. The book has the grip of a superior thriller while introducing, with no sense of strain, a sense of sorrowful mortality that lingers long after the last page." (Publishers Weekly)

This was a decent, but unexceptional book

The book ends very strong, but the ending did not quite make up for the weak beginning and moderate middle. The character development was better than most, but not superb. There are numerous images that will stick with me, but overall Another World lacked the richness I look for in this kind of novel. The writing was otherwise good.

Really about death and dying

The summaries of this book focus on the blended family and the uncovered picture that appears to be them.

But the bulk of the story is about a grandson and his grandfather who is over 100 and has cancer.

That story reaches a conclusion.

All other storylines are left incomplete, as if the book is incomplete.

Well written but unsatisfying.

explorations of memory, and death

Another World by Pat Barker takes place in the current day, with a big portion of the story occurring in the memories of the old man who fought in WW1. Our main characters are Nick and his grandfather Geordie. Nick is a university professor who is there to help care for his grandpa who is at the end of his life. Geordie is a 101 year old man in his last days, and a veteran of the first world war. Although many other members of the family are present they are mostly unimportant and part of the background.

The story is really about memory. How does trauma affect it? What about age? Is Geordie's memory stronger as he nears his death or is it less reliable. I like how the author questions the permanence and reliability of memory. She uses her characters to show us how memory is colored by our personal views and experiences. Memory changes and adapts. It is about perception. What we value at one point in our life differs from other times and those values affect what we remember and how we see things. And sometimes the memories are also affected by the stories we hear from others. They intertwine and meld together changing the story.

But for me the power of this book was about its exploration of death and grief. These moments between Nick and Geordie were quite beautiful. The emotions were real and raw and brought to my mind my own feelings about the last week of my father's life. I found myself wishing that he had been more alert and verbal during that time so that I could relive it and ask him a million questions, probing his memory regardless of its malleability. Explorations of death always resonate with me. It is one experience that we will all face. Losing a person we loved is a universal experience and the emotions that are triggered are parallel to those of others in the similar place.

Not my favorite Pat Barker

If you are expecting the exceptional storytelling of the Regeneration Trilogy, you will be disappointed. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the author, the sections dealing with WWI vet Geordie are the strongest. And the true (familial) love story between Geordie and his grandson, Nick, is touching. But the relationship between Nick and his wife is fraught with what seems like genuine dislike--so much so that I had a hard time imagining how they could ever have come together long enough to create not one but two children in such a short period of time. I just couldn't quite care about any of the rest of the characters.

can not download file too big

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Could not download the file was not broken apart and so it was too long to download so there is no way I can download and listen to it on the on the only device I have

What was most disappointing about Pat Barker’s story?

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Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Steven Crossley?

Na

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Another World?

Na

Any additional comments?

Na