Editors Reads Verdict
Pat Barker continues her unsettling feminist rereading of the Trojan War with the same unflinching clarity that distinguished its predecessor, capturing the liminal horror of the war's aftermath with prose that is simultaneously spare and devastating.
What We Loved
- Barker's prose achieves a spare, controlled intensity that few contemporary novelists match
- The focus on aftermath rather than battle is a genuinely original choice
- Briseis remains one of the most compelling narrators in recent mythological fiction
- The novel captures the particular horror of a war that is over but refuses to end
Minor Drawbacks
- Works significantly less well as a standalone than as a sequel — prior reading of The Silence of the Girls is essential
- The structure is looser than the first novel, and the pacing occasionally stalls
- Some readers may find the relentless grimness difficult to sustain
Key Takeaways
- → War does not end when the fighting stops — for the defeated, the aftermath is its own kind of conflict
- → History is written by victors who rarely acknowledge what winning actually costs
- → Women's survival in conflict zones requires forms of resilience that are invisible to those who haven't needed them
| Author | Pat Barker |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Pages | 272 |
| Published | August 5, 2021 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Mythological Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Readers who have finished The Silence of the Girls and want to follow Briseis beyond Troy's walls, particularly those drawn to literary fiction that examines war's psychological aftermath without sentimentality. |
The Beach at the End of the War
Troy has fallen. The city is ash and rubble. And the Greeks cannot go home. The Women of Troy opens in this liminal space — the Greeks stranded on the beach outside destroyed Troy, their fleet unable to sail because Calchas has declared the winds will not come until Priam’s son Polyxena is sacrificed to appease Achilles’ shade. The war is over, but the killing is not, and the women who survived the war now face the question of what survival means when there is nowhere yet to go.
Pat Barker’s sequel to The Silence of the Girls returns to Briseis as narrator, now in a slightly more complicated position: she carries Achilles’ child, which gives her a status among the Greeks that the other Trojan women do not have, and a guilt about that status that she cannot entirely suppress. The novel is intensely interested in this kind of survivor’s calculus — the small accommodations and advantages that allow some women to survive while others do not, and what those accommodations cost.
The Aftermath as Subject
Most Trojan War retellings focus on the war itself: the siege, the battles, the death of Hector, the wooden horse. Barker makes the unusual choice of treating the aftermath as her primary subject, and the decision proves remarkably fruitful. The beach is a pressure cooker of unresolved trauma, political tension, and barely suppressed violence. The Greeks have won and are miserable in their victory; the Trojan women have lost everything and are managing survival with the resources they have left.
This focus on aftermath also allows Barker to examine what victory actually produces. The Greeks have sacked a city, enslaved its women, and killed its men — and now they are stuck on a beach arguing about a sacrifice none of them fully want to make, in a war that officially ended but psychologically has not. Barker renders this with her characteristic restraint, letting the horror accumulate through precise observation rather than dramatic statement.
Barker’s Unsparing Vision
The strength of Barker’s mythological fiction is the same quality that distinguished her Regeneration trilogy about the First World War: an absolute refusal to aestheticize suffering, combined with prose precise enough to render suffering’s full texture without sentimentality. The Women of Troy is not an easy read, and Barker does not intend it to be. But it is a rigorous and humane one, and Briseis’ continued insistence on seeing clearly — on naming what she observes even when the naming costs her — makes her one of the most valuable narrators in contemporary fiction.
Our rating: 4.1/5 — A worthy and unsettling continuation of Barker’s feminist Trojan War project, most powerful in its unflinching attention to what happens after the heroes go home.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "The Women of Troy" about?
A sequel to The Silence of the Girls, following Briseis and the Trojan women through the aftermath of the war's end as the Greeks are stranded on the beach, unable to sail home, and old wounds refuse to heal.
Who should read "The Women of Troy"?
Readers who have finished The Silence of the Girls and want to follow Briseis beyond Troy's walls, particularly those drawn to literary fiction that examines war's psychological aftermath without sentimentality.
What are the key takeaways from "The Women of Troy"?
War does not end when the fighting stops — for the defeated, the aftermath is its own kind of conflict History is written by victors who rarely acknowledge what winning actually costs Women's survival in conflict zones requires forms of resilience that are invisible to those who haven't needed them
Is "The Women of Troy" worth reading?
Pat Barker continues her unsettling feminist rereading of the Trojan War with the same unflinching clarity that distinguished its predecessor, capturing the liminal horror of the war's aftermath with prose that is simultaneously spare and devastating.
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