The Silence of the Girls

Author: Pat Barker
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2018
Pages: 304
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman--Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war's outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy's neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles's concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army. 

When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis's people, but also of the ancient world at large.

Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war--the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead--all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis's perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker's latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives--and it is nothing short of magnificent.

Review: This isn't a time period I would typically choose, but the premise interested me. In many ways this novel reminded me of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, which is another book that I read due to rave reviews, not because I was interested in the times.

At some point the women's voices are muted, and this becomes Achilles story to tell. It's a shame because the novel started out strong. Eventually too, the details become repetitive and the chapters tedious. The writing and story that we're introduced to in Chapters 1 and 2 aren't carried through to the end, and that's a shame.

The Silence of the Girls is violent, and there is strong/harsh language, but I just offer that up as a warning.