The Voyage Home

Publishes 27/08/2024. 

Peta’s Review 

Pat Barker’s third instalment of her retelling of Homer’s Iliad, from the perspective of the women of Troy, does not disappoint.

Her first two books, The Silence of the Girls (2018) and The Women of Troy (2021), recount the events of the ten-year war from the point of view of Briseis, Achilles’war prize, and the cause of the bitter feud between Achilles and Agamemnon. The war now over, Troy razed to the ground, the men and babies slaughtered, the women seized as slaves, the wind has finally arrived and Agamemnon’s victorious army is finally on its way home. Barker tells this tale from three perspectives: Rista, formally Briseis’ maid and friend, now Cassandra’s maid; Cassandra, King Priam’s daughter, now Agamemnon’s war bride; and Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife who remained waiting at home, having ruled Mycenae for the duration of the war. Clytemnestra is in mourning for the ritual killing, by Agamemnon, of their daughter Iphigenia. As a Priestess with the gift of prophesy, Cassandra knows that she and Agamemnon are fated to die at the hands of Clytemnestra. Ritsa is powerless to stop the prophesy, or Clytemnestra’s rage.

Homer’s Iliad is, I believe, the world’s greatest epic poem. I loved it the first time I read it and have returned to it time and again. A copy always sits on my bedside table. Themes of love, family, power, suffering, loss, anger, pride and duty, are timeless. Although women in Homer’s story seem to inhabit it obliquely, if you read carefully, you will find they are in factpowerfully present. Barker deftly gives these women a voice. For me, Ritsa is a person I would befriend, Cassandra a woman I would keep at a distance, Clytemnestra a woman I would admire, and whose pain as a mother I understand. If you have read the previous two books, you will love The Voyage Home.  If you haven’t, Barker’s new book can be read as a stand-alone story – but once you’ve done so, you won’t be able to resist reading The Silence of the Girls and Women of Troy.

Publisher’s Review 

The exhilarating follow-up to Pat Barker's The Women of Troy and The Silence of the Girls.

After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle.

Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks - among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa. Enslaved as concubine - war-wife - to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death - and her own - while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra's frenzies and the horrors to come.

Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet's return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband's choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.

As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon's death, one thing is certain- this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone's fates forever.