SOURCE: "Soldiers of Misfortune: In the Trenches with Pat Barker," in The Village Voice, Vol. XXXVII, No. 28, July 14, 1992, p. 91.

In the following highly positive review of Regeneration, Nixon discusses some of the major themes in Barker's work.

The cabbie who drove me the few miles from Durham to Pat Barker's home in Newton Hall announced that we were entering the largest housing estate in all of Europe. Newton Hall was also, he added and proved, Europe's easiest estate to get lost in: Some streets, Barker's among them, had not made it onto the map he thumbed with an air of practiced futility. Barker must be familiar with the sensation of being uncharted. Prior to Regeneration, she'd written mainly about the working-class women of England's industrial north: an unplaceable set of interests in terms of the expectations and prejudices of British publishing. Barker devoted much of her imaginative energy...