Hungry Ghosts by C J Barker

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Hungry Ghosts by C J Barker

The lives of Vic Woods and Ruth Wolfe, working-class teenagers from Liverpool and London, are profoundly disrupted by the arrival of World War II.

Ruth’s journey leads her to aerial photographic interpretation, though her aspirations for advancement are denied, while Vic’s wartime experiences with bomber command haunt him long after the war is over. Their post-war marriage and tumultuous relationship with their son, James, make for a gripping narrative of trauma, conflict and, ultimately, love.

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Set against the backdrop of World War II and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, Hungry Ghosts transports readers into the drama of two pivotal eras in history, exploring the intergenerational impact of war, particularly on the intricate relationships between fathers and sons.

Hungry Ghosts is not just a war story; it’s a timeless exploration of family bonds and the indelible scars left by war.

My Review

Based on Buddhist tradition, ‘hungry ghosts’ are those who ‘chase after what they think they need, but they can never find peace, even when they acquire what they thought they wanted. They are always hungry and never happy. What they have is never enough.’

It’s an interesting concept and Vic is told that, ‘to help a hungry ghost, we must listen to them and help them experience something good and beautiful to believe in.’ Vic knows he is one of them, ‘chasing, chasing, chasing after what he thought he wanted.’ This is a lesson he learns when he spends some time in a monastery after collapsing with exhaustion following months of photographing the Vietnam war.

But do we as the reader have sympathy with Vic? Particularly as wives and mothers, do we side so vehemently with Ruth, that all we can see is his drinking, his selfishness, his misogyny and his abandonment of his son. I am not of their generation, I am not working class, I received a private education leaving school at 16, but continuing with further education for another four years, the latter being in the early 1970s. Women of Ruth’s generation and class were forbidden from doing any of this.

My father was born in Poland, joined up in 1939 aged 16 and was taken prisoner-of-war in Siberia. When he finally escaped, he came to England and joined the RAF Polish Squadron. I never felt the effects of ‘combat stress’ being passed on to me, but then he never flew in active combat, as the war was ending, nor did he see what Vic saw. I suffered the aftermath of my Jewish mother having to flee nazi overrun Vienna in 1938. Her retreat into barbiturates and agoraphobia had a profound effect on my childhood.

But I do see the effects of PTSD on a friend who was in the Falklands War, and at 18 years old plucked body parts out of the water. What you see you can never unsee and it has shaped his life.

Vic was one of those who dropped bombs on Dresden and had horrific nightmares about the city burning, the charred bodies, the trapped and terrified children. What you see you can never unsee. And Vic can never unsee the horror. And that is what takes him to Vietnam, where his photos make him one of the most renowned war photographers in the world. His book ‘World on Fire’ becomes the blueprint for war photography.

But his son James only saw an alcoholic bully, who stood over him and his mother, his breath stinking of booze, then finally abandoning them to travel the world, ‘just taking pictures’. James could never understand why he didn’t help save anyone, just stood as an observer with a camera. It’s how we feel when we watch a nature programme and cannot understand why the filmmakers didn’t help that lost polar bear cub or save a baby penguin from certain death.

I am massively conflicted after reading Hungry Ghosts. I love Ruth and I can sympathise with Vic, but I feel that maybe they should have just divorced straight away. Then he could have had visiting rights where James was concerned, Ruth could have had another crack at finding love, and Vic would not have felt beholden to her.

Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Born in England, resident in Thirroul, Australia, Chris Barker has been an educator in schools and universities in the UK and Australia. He has published several non- fiction books, and now writes fiction between stints in the garden, where he grows vegetables and looks after chickens. He has published short stories in England, America and Australia.