Editing Pat Barker (section)

===Early work===
Barker has written many novels.<ref>{{Cite magazine|title=Pat Barker, The Art of Fiction No. 243|magazine=[[The Paris Review]] |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7290/pat-barker-the-art-of-fiction-no-243-pat-barker|last=Stivers|first=Valerie|year=2018|issue=227}}</ref> In her mid-twenties, Barker began to write fiction. Her first three novels were never published and, she told ''[[The Guardian]]'' in 2003, "didn't deserve to be: I was being a sensitive lady novelist, which is not what I am. There's an earthiness and bawdiness in my voice.”<ref name="GuardianAug03" />

Her first published novel was ''[[Union Street (novel)|Union Street]]'' (1982), which consisted of seven interlinked stories about [[Social structure of the United Kingdom|English working class]] women whose lives are circumscribed by poverty and violence.{{cn|date=August 2022}} For ten years, the manuscript was rejected by publishers as too "bleak and depressing."<ref name="CLinterview">{{cite journal | title=An Interview With Pat Barker | journal=Contemporary Literature | last=Nixon | first=Rob | number=1 | year=2004 | volume=45| pages=vi-21 | doi=10.1353/cli.2004.0010 | doi-access=free }}</ref>  Barker met novelist [[Angela Carter]] at an [[Arvon Foundation]] writers' workshop. Carter liked the book, telling Barker "if they can't sympathise with the women you're creating, then sod their fucking luck," and suggested she send the manuscript to [[Women's writing in English|feminist publisher]] [[Virago Press|Virago]], which accepted it.<ref name="GuardianAug03" /> The ''[[New Statesman]]'' hailed the novel as a "long overdue working class masterpiece,"<ref name="GuardianAug03" /> and ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'' commented Barker "gives the sense of a writer who has enormous power that she has scarcely had to tap to write a first-rate first novel."<ref>{{cite news|last=Gold |first=Ivan |title=North Country Women|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/nnp/barker-union.html |work=The New York Times |date=2 October 1983}}</ref>  ''Union Street'' was later adapted as the Hollywood film ''[[Stanley & Iris]]'' (1990), starring [[Robert De Niro]] and [[Jane Fonda]]. Barker has said the film bears little resemblance to her book.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} As of 2003, the novel remained one of Virago's top sellers.<ref name="GuardianAug03" />

Barker's first three published novels – ''Union Street'' (1982), ''[[Blow Your House Down]]'' (1984) and ''[[Liza's England]]'' (1986; originally published as ''The Century's Daughter'') – depicted the lives of working-class women in [[Yorkshire]]. ''BookForum'' magazine described them as "full of feeling, violent and sordid, but never exploitative or sensationalistic and rarely sentimental."<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_05/2049 | title=Chums of War: Pat Barker revisits the trauma of World War I | work=Book Forum | date=February–March 2008 | last=Locke | first=Richard}}</ref> ''Blow Your House Down'' portrays prostitutes living in a [[North of England]] city, who are being stalked by a [[serial killer]].<ref>[https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312240899 Macmillan overview]. Retrieved 25 May 2010.</ref> ''Liza's England'', described by the ''[[Sunday Times]]'' as a "modern-day masterpiece," tracks the life of a working-class woman born at the dawn of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/nov/20/theotherpatbarkertrilogy | title=The other Pat Barker trilogy | work=The Guardian| date=20 November 2007 | last=Webb | first=Belinda}}</ref>