Notes from the Henhouse by Elspeth Barker review – little masterpieces from the author of O Caledonia | Essays
Elspeth Barker could write about anything and have you longing for more, which makes it sad that she wrote so little: we need to cherish every word that has survived of her. She was the wife of the poet George Barker and, in the ways that count, a poet herself – although in prose. When she died, in 2022, she had published one wonderful novel, O Caledonia, about a wayward 16-year-old girl growing up in a Scottish castle. Described by Ali Smith as “one of the best least-known novels of the 20th century”, it became, once…