Tobys Room, Pat Barker
Tobys Room, Pat Barker
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Toby's Room

Author: Pat Barker

Narrator: Nicola Barber

Unabridged: 9 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/02/2012

Synopsis

It is 1917 and Elinor Brooke, a young painter, is studying art in London while her beloved brother Toby serves on the front as a medical officer. When Toby goes missing and is presumed dead, the devastated Elinor refuses to accept it. A letter she finds hidden among his belongings reveals that Toby knew he wasn’t coming back and implies that his friend, medic Kit Neville, knows why. But Kit has been horribly disfigured and is reeling from shell shock.While Elinor tries to piece together the mystery of what happened to her brother, she uses her drawing skills to aid in the surgical reconstruction of those who have suffered unspeakable losses—their faces, their memories, their very minds.Masterfully written and daringly ambitious, Toby’s Room explores at all levels of it means to be human.

About Pat Barker

Pat Barker is an English novelist who has won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Booker Prize. In 2000 she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

About Nicola Barber

Nicola Barber, is an Audie Award and Earphones Award-winning narrator whose voice can be heard in television and radio commercials and popular video games such as World of Warcraft. She is also an Audie finalist in the prestigious category of solo female narrationfor her work on Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen and Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. She has performed on the stage in New York City and at a number of top regional theaters in the United States. Her film and television roles include The Nanny Diaries with Scarlett Johansson, and Law & Order’s 2009 season premiere. Originally from England, she currently resides in New York, a multicultural background that enables her to bring a broad range of accents and characterizations to her role as a full-time voice-over actor.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Julie on December 29, 2012

The bitter irony of war is that it defines life at the same time as it destroys. For those in uniform, following orders is the one raison d’etre when all reason has been lost in the bloodied muck of the battlefield. For those left behind, doing for the war effort becomes the channel through which fe......more

Goodreads review by Amanda on January 07, 2013

I have huge respect for Pat Barker and devoured her "Regeneration" trilogy, but have been a little disappointed in subsequent offerings. I'm afraid "Toby's Room" hasn't changed that at all. Still writing about the tragedy of WW1, I feel this novel and it's somewhat surprising opening events doesn't r......more

Quotes

“The precision of Ms. Barker’s writing shows her again to be one of the finest chroniclers of both the physical and psychological disfigurements exacted by the First World War.”

“Unforgettable…Toby’s Room takes large risks…And it succeeds brilliantly.”

“The writing is lucid and often beautiful.”

“Images are scrupulously vivid, and the plot has real momentum.”

“A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London.”

“Barker is so deft handling history, from battlefield scenes to surgery in Queen’s Hospital, that she has few peers.”

“A novel about how art attempts to depict the horrors of World War One.”

“Art and war are the real fusion in this novel, and Barker offers fascinating meditations on the interrelation between the two…A powerful book.”

“No one evokes England in all its stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker. She is…determined to render an honest portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of sight.”

“Barker has shown again that she is not only a fine chronicler of war but of human nature.”

Awards

  • New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books
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