Union Street, " Pat Barker's first novel, concerns seven neighboring women near a factory in northeast England. Life for these women is trying: some of them are married to alcoholics, some are victims of abuse, one is old and near death, another is still a child but has the experience of an adult, all are struggling to survive. First published in 1982, it was made into the film" Stanley & Iris" by MGM in 1989, starring Robert DeNiro and Jane Fonda "Blow Your House Down, " Barker's second novel, also portrays the lives of women in industrial England--but these women are prostitutes, living in a northern England city that is stalked by a vicious, Jack the Ripper-style serial killer who is singling out women with nowhere else to go.