Pat Barker

The Eye in the Door Pat Barker

The Eye in the Door is the Booker Prize-winning second installation of Pat Barker's acclaimed and haunting historical fiction trilogy about British soldiers traumatized by World War I trench warfare and the methods used by psychiatrist William Rivers to treat them. Lieutenant Billy Prior is tormented by figuring out which side of several coins does he live-coward or hero, crazy or sane, homosexual or heterosexual, upper class or lower. Billy represents the upheaval in Britain during the war and the severe trauma felt by its soldiers. Barker uses the lives of a few to capture an entire society during a tumultuous period in history.