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. "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." "Barker writes about love, loss, and survival, themes that are supported well by Nicola Barber's able narration. Barber imbues Elinor with a spirit of humanity that makes her easier to empathize with, particularly in her grief…The vocal differentiation is excellent, particularly the-at times, uncomfortable-voicing of the young man who lost his nose in the war."
