Ardis is an American critic and educator. In the following essay, she discusses the effect of Barker's Blow Your House Down on her college literature classes and examines the ways in which the novel addresses various feminist themes.

Blow Your House Down lacks, I think, both spirit and direction. It is set in the industrial North where a series of murders similar to those by the Ripper are being carried out. The novel traces the responses of those women who feel most under threat. It's 'gritty', 'tough' and 'hard-hitting' in the tradition of much British Sixties realist writing. Barker certainly avoids patronising the women she describes. They are, without exception, poor, and prostitutio...