Toby's Room

About the Book: Toby's Room

Pat Barker returns to the First World War in this dark, compelling novel of humandesire, wartime horror and the power of friendship.

Toby and Elinor, brother and sister, friends and confidants, are sharers of a dark secret, carried from the summer of 1912 into the battlefields of France and wartime London in 1917.

When Toby is reported 'Missing, Believed Killed', another secret casts a lengthening shadow over Elinor's world: how exactly did Toby die - and why? Elinor's fellow student Kit Neville was there in the fox-hole when Toby met his fate, but has secrets of his own to keep. Enlisting the help of former lover Paul Tarrant, Elinor determines to uncover the truth. Only then can she finally close the door to Toby's room. Moving from the Slade School of Art to Queen Mary's Hospital, where surgery and art intersect in the rebuilding of the shattered faces of the wounded, Toby's Room is a riveting drama of identity, damage, intimacy and loss. It is Pat Barker's most powerful novel yet .....

Reviews

Vivid and emotive ?.. Barker's evocation of the front-line hospital is masterly, gripping in its narrative thrust and judicious in its use of detail' - Independent, Penelope Lively on Life Class

'Sharply written and elegantly constructed ?.. breathtaking' - D. J. Taylor, Guardian on Life Class

'Barker is excellent at capturing the insecurities and intense but random love affairs of youth ?.. Thoughtful, ambiguous and powerful' - Sunday Telegraph on Life Class