the eye i n the oor Pat fortar author of Regeneratioh . $20.95 I Pat Barker's brilliant antiwar I novel, Regeneration, was I widely hailed as a master- piece and was named by the f New York Times Book Review ^^^^" as one of the four best novels of 1992. Now Pat Barker returns to the World War I era with The Eye in the Door, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize for 1 993 It is the spring of 1918. On the battlefields of France, a mammoth German offensive threatens the English army with defeat. In England itself, a beleaguered government and panic- stricken, vengeful public seek scapegoats. Two groups are tar- geted for persecution and prosecution: pacifists and homosexuals. Many are jailed, others lead dangerous double lives; and "the eye in the door" becomes a symbol of the para- noia that threatens to destroy the very fabric of British society. Central to this novel is Lieutenant Billy Prior, recently released from treatment for shell shock by psychia- trist Dr. William Rivers. Prior is in London, assigned to a domestic Intelligence unit. His position demands that he inves- tigate an imprisoned female pacifist accused of plotting a political assassination-a woman who raised him as a child, and who now accuses him of betraying that childhood. At the same time, he has had a casual but intense sexual encounter with a fellow patient of Dr. Rivers-Charles Manning, an upper- (Continued on back flap) THE EYE IN THE DOOR BY THE SAME AUTHOR Union Street Blow Your House Down The Century's Daughter The Man Who Wasn't There Regeneration PAT BARKER THE EYE IN THE DOOR A WILLIAM ABRAHAMS BOOK A DUTTON BOOK DUTTON Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Published by Dutton, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. Originally published in Great Britain by Penguin Books Ltd. First Dutton Printing, May, 1994 10 987654321 Copyright © Pat Barker, 1993 All rights reserved REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA 5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Barker, Pat. The eye in the door / Pat Barker. p. cm. ISBN 0-525-93808-7 1. World War, 1914-1918—Great Britain—Fiction. 2. Rivers, W H. R. (William Halse Rivers), 1864-1922—Fiction. 3. Sassoon, Siegfried, 1888-1967—Fiction. 4. Poets, English—20th century- Fiction. 5. Psychiatrists—Great Britain—Fiction. 6. Gays—Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title. PR6052A6488E97 1994 823'.914—dc20 93-43833 CIP Printed in the United States of America Set in Bembo PUBLISHER'S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. For David It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both . . . The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - R. L. Stevenson