num_pages: 325
description: The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army which continues to wage bloody war over a stolen womanHelen. In the Greek camp another womanBriseiswatches and waits for the war's outcome. 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 coolly unflinching about the daily horrors of war Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position able to observe the two men driving the Greek army 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 warthe slaves and prostitutes the nurses the women who lay out the deadall 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 livesand it is nothing short of magnificent.
language: English
title: The Silence of the Girls
publisher: Doubleday Books