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ABOUT THIS BOOK

PUBLISHER: W&N

FORMAT: Hardback

ISBN: 9781399612494

RRP: £18.99

PAGES: 240

PUBLICATION DATE:
November 9, 2023

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Notes from the Henhouse

Elspeth Barker

In Notes from the Henhouse, you will find:

A Gothic castle, a draughty Norfolk farmhouse and a malevolent Aga

A pet pig, Portia with a penchant for drama, an obsession with geraniums and an addiction to wine (the Bulgarian vintage)

George Barker, poet and beloved husband, warbling cowboy songs into his glass and declaiming Hopkins and Houseman in The Drinking Room

Five entrancing baby cherubimos, rolling and bouncing about in a big brass bed, before growing up at breakneck speed

The ecstasy of writing, the dither of procrastination, and the endless adventures to be had in the wild realms of the imagination

The outrage of death, the loneliness of widowhood, and then the surprising joys of dereliction: of moving very slowly round the garden in a shapeless coat, planting drifts of narcissus bulbs for latter springs.

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Elspeth Barker

Elspeth Barker (1940-2022) wrote and published her first and only novel O Caledonia, at the age of 51. It was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize.

In her career as a journalist, Elspeth wrote for the Independent, Observer, Sunday Times, London Review of Books and others. For ten years in the 1980s Elspeth taught Latin at what she describes as a naughty girls’ school on the Norfolk coast. Later, she worked as a lecturer in Creative Writing at the Norwich University of the Arts. She was married to the poet George Barker, with whom she had 5 children, they lived in rural Norfolk. After his death in 1991 she lived on there with numerous badly behaved animals and a home that welcomed everyone.