Pat Barker was born in Yorkshire and began her literary career in her forties, when she took a short writing course taught by Angela Carter. Encouraged by Carter to continue writing and exploring the lives of working class women, she sent her fiction out to publishers. Thirty-five years later, she has published fifteen novels, including her masterful Regeneration Trilogy, been made a CBE for services to literature, and won awards including the Guardian Fiction Prize and the UK's highest literary honour, the Booker Prize. She lives in Durham and her latest novel is The Silence of the Girls.
Praise for Toby's Room -Barker...has pursued [World War I] through
a remarkable series of novels: the much-admired -Regeneration-
trilogy...Life Class and now Toby's Room.... [T]hese novels go far
beyond a demonstration of the powers of the historical imagination.
Like most good works of fiction, they're not so much about the
events they depict as about the resonance of those events, the way
certain actions ripple through people's lives.... Toby's Room takes
large risks. It's dark, painful and indelibly grotesque, yet it is
also tender. It strains its own narrative control to create in the
midst of an ordinary life a kind of deformed reality--precisely to
illustrate how everything we call 'ordinary' is disfigured by war.
And it succeeds brilliantly.--- John Vernon, New York Times Book
Review
-[T]he writing is lucid and often beautiful.---Thom Geier,
Entertainment Weekly
-A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London.---Joanna
Scutts, Washington Post -You get a glimpse inside Toby's room in
Pat Barker's poignant novel of the same name, but what you remember
are three real and very different English landmarks -- the Slade,
London's prestigious art academy; Cafe Royal, frequented by the
likes of Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf; and the
Queen's Hospital, opened in 1917 to serve injured British soldiers
in need of facial reconstruction.... No one evokes England in all
its stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker. She is as
uncompromising as Henry Tonks, as determined to render an honest
portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of
sight.... [She] sets the bar high.---Ellen Kanner, Miami Herald
-Haunting and complicated sibling love is at the heart of Pat
Barker's Great War novel.... [T]he 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.---Wall Street Journal -Barker deftly fused fact and
fiction in her hugely impressive -Regeneration Trilogy- by turning
the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen into integral
characters. She continues this blending in Toby's Room.... [It] is
in many ways Barker's most ambitious novel to date.... As ever, the
war scenes, and the accounts of the broken men who inhabit them,
are, by turn, gripping and unsettling. However, in with the carnage
and the trauma are those expert passages on art as something both
reflective and redemptive. This is a powerful book that chronicles
in various ingenious ways, and from certain unique perspectives,
'the poignancy of a young life cut short.'---Malcolm Forbes, San
Francisco Chronicle -A Pat Barker novel...is a novel that deals in
some way with the horrors of World War One, and it's a also a novel
about art, but mostly it's a novel about how art attempts to depict
the horrors of World War One. And this is how a Pat Barker novel
attempts to depict the horrors of World War One: bluntly.---Brock
Clark, Boston Globe
-[A]lthough Toby's Room is not billed as a prequel or sequel to
Life Class and the reader need not be familiar with that novel in
order to get to grips with this... [t]hose who do know Barker's
previous work will be struck by recurrences and continuations in
this novel not only of events in Life Class, but in Regeneration,
too.... [Barker's] prose remains fresh, humanely business-like,
crisp and unsentimental. Images are scrupulously vivid, and the
plot has real momentum.---Freya Johnston, Telegraph (London) -A
driving storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the history of
our world.... For Barker, the wounded faces of the soldier-victims
are realities, and also emblems of what must never be forgotten or
evaded about war, and must continue - in her plain, steady,
compelling voice - to be turned into art.---Hermione Lee, Guardian
(London)
Praise for Life Class
-Beautiful and evocative . . . A coming-of-age story that
transcends the individual and gestures to the fate of a
generation.-
--People
-Life Class possesses organic power and narrative sweep . . .
Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of war and its fallout with
meticulous precision.-
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
-Here, as in her best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich
characters . . . and resists the trappings of a neat love story,
reminding us once again that in art and life we remain infinitely
mysterious.-
--San Francisco Chronicle
Praise for the Regeneration Trilogy
-A masterwork . . . complex and ambitious.-
--The New York Times Book Review
-It has been Pat Barker's accomplishment to enlarge the scope of
the contemporary English novel.-
--The New Yorker
-A literary achievement . . . remarkable.-
--San Francisco Chronicle
-Some of the most powerful antiwar writing in modern fiction.-
-- The Boston Globe
Praise for Toby's Room "Barker...has pursued [World War I] through
a remarkable series of novels: the much-admired "Regeneration"
trilogy...Life Class and now Toby's Room.... [T]hese novels go far
beyond a demonstration of the powers of the historical imagination.
Like most good works of fiction, they're not so much about the
events they depict as about the resonance of those events, the way
certain actions ripple through people's lives.... Toby's Room takes
large risks. It's dark, painful and indelibly grotesque, yet it is
also tender. It strains its own narrative control to create in the
midst of an ordinary life a kind of deformed reality--precisely to
illustrate how everything we call 'ordinary' is disfigured by war.
And it succeeds brilliantly."-- John Vernon, New York Times Book
Review
"[T]he writing is lucid and often beautiful."--Thom Geier,
Entertainment Weekly
"A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London."--Joanna
Scutts, Washington Post "You get a glimpse inside Toby's room in
Pat Barker's poignant novel of the same name, but what you remember
are three real and very different English landmarks -- the Slade,
London's prestigious art academy; Cafe Royal, frequented by the
likes of Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf; and the
Queen's Hospital, opened in 1917 to serve injured British soldiers
in need of facial reconstruction.... No one evokes England in all
its stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker. She is as
uncompromising as Henry Tonks, as determined to render an honest
portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of
sight.... [She] sets the bar high."--Ellen Kanner, Miami Herald
"Haunting and complicated sibling love is at the heart of Pat
Barker's Great War novel.... [T]he 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."--Wall Street Journal "Barker deftly fused fact and
fiction in her hugely impressive "Regeneration Trilogy" by turning
the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen into integral
characters. She continues this blending in Toby's Room.... [It] is
in many ways Barker's most ambitious novel to date.... As ever, the
war scenes, and the accounts of the broken men who inhabit them,
are, by turn, gripping and unsettling. However, in with the carnage
and the trauma are those expert passages on art as something both
reflective and redemptive. This is a powerful book that chronicles
in various ingenious ways, and from certain unique perspectives,
'the poignancy of a young life cut short.'"--Malcolm Forbes, San
Francisco Chronicle "A Pat Barker novel...is a novel that deals in
some way with the horrors of World War One, and it's a also a novel
about art, but mostly it's a novel about how art attempts to depict
the horrors of World War One. And this is how a Pat Barker novel
attempts to depict the horrors of World War One: bluntly."--Brock
Clark, Boston Globe
"[A]lthough Toby's Room is not billed as a prequel or sequel to
Life Class and the reader need not be familiar with that novel in
order to get to grips with this... [t]hose who do know Barker's
previous work will be struck by recurrences and continuations in
this novel not only of events in Life Class, but in Regeneration,
too.... [Barker's] prose remains fresh, humanely business-like,
crisp and unsentimental. Images are scrupulously vivid, and the
plot has real momentum."--Freya Johnston, Telegraph (London) "A
driving storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the history of
our world.... For Barker, the wounded faces of the soldier-victims
are realities, and also emblems of what must never be forgotten or
evaded about war, and must continue - in her plain, steady,
compelling voice - to be turned into art."--Hermione Lee, Guardian
(London)
Praise for Life Class
"Beautiful and evocative . . . A coming-of-age story that
transcends the individual and gestures to the fate of a
generation."
--People
"Life Class possesses organic power and narrative sweep . . .
Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of war and its fallout with
meticulous precision."
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Here, as in her best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich
characters . . . and resists the trappings of a neat love story,
reminding us once again that in art and life we remain infinitely
mysterious."
--San Francisco Chronicle
Praise for the Regeneration Trilogy
"A masterwork . . . complex and ambitious."
--The New York Times Book Review
"It has been Pat Barker's accomplishment to enlarge the scope of
the contemporary English novel."
--The New Yorker
"A literary achievement . . . remarkable."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Some of the most powerful antiwar writing in modern fiction."
-- The Boston Globe
Praise for "Toby's Room" "Barker...has pursued [World War I]
through a remarkable series of novels: the much-admired
"Regeneration" trilogy..."Life Class" and now "Toby's Room."...
[T]hese novels go far beyond a demonstration of the powers of the
historical imagination.Like most good works of fiction, they re not
so much about the events they depict as about the resonance of
those events, the way certain actions ripple through people s
lives.... "Toby's Room" takes large risks. It s dark, painful and
indelibly grotesque, yet it is also tender. It strains its own
narrative control to create in the midst of an ordinary life a kind
of deformed reality precisely to illustrate how everything we call
ordinary is disfigured by war. And it succeeds brilliantly." John
Vernon, "New York Times Book Review
"
"[T]he writing is lucid and often beautiful." Thom Geier,
"Entertainment Weekly
"
"A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London." Joanna Scutts,
"Washington Post" "You get a glimpse inside Toby s room in Pat
Barker s poignant novel of the same name, but what you remember are
three real and very different English landmarks the Slade, London s
prestigious art academy; Cafe Royal, frequented by the likes of
Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf; and the Queen s
Hospital, opened in 1917 to serve injured British soldiers in need
of facial reconstruction.... No one evokes England in all its
stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker. She is as
uncompromising as Henry Tonks, as determined to render an honest
portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of
sight.... [She] sets the bar high." Ellen Kanner, "Miami Herald"
"Haunting and complicated sibling love is at the heart of Pat
Barker's Great War novel.... [T]he 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." "Wall Street Journal" "Barker deftly fused fact and
fiction in her hugely impressive "Regeneration Trilogy" by turning
the war poetsSiegfried SassoonandWilfred Oweninto integral
characters. She continues this blending in "Toby's Room."... [It]is
in many ways Barker's most ambitious novel to date....As ever, the
war scenes, and the accounts of the broken men who inhabit them,
are, by turn, gripping and unsettling. However, in with the carnage
and the trauma are those expert passages on art as something both
reflective and redemptive. This is a powerful book that chronicles
in various ingenious ways, and from certain unique perspectives,
'the poignancy of a young life cutshort.'" Malcolm Forbes, "San
Francisco Chronicle" "A Pat Barker novel is a novel that deals in
some way with the horrors of World War One, and it s a also a novel
about art, but mostly it s a novel about how art attempts to depict
the horrors of World War One. And this is how a Pat Barker novel
attempts to depict the horrors of World War One: bluntly." Brock
Clark, "Boston Globe
"
"[A]lthough "Toby s Room" is not billed as a prequel or sequel to
"Life Class" and the reader need not be familiar with that novel in
order to get to grips with this... [t]hose who do know Barker s
previous work will be struck by recurrences and continuations in
this novel not only of events in "Life Class," but in
"Regeneration," too....[Barker's] prose remains fresh, humanely
business-like, crisp and unsentimental. Images are scrupulously
vivid, and the plot has real momentum." Freya Johnston, "Telegraph"
(London) "A driving storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the
history of our world.... For Barker, the wounded faces of the
soldier-victims are realities, and also emblems of what must never
be forgotten or evaded about war, and must continue in her plain,
steady, compelling voice to be turned into art." Hermione Lee,
"Guardian" (London)
Praise for "Life Class
"
Beautiful and evocative . . . A coming-of-age story that transcends
the individual and gestures to the fate of a generation.
"People
" "Life Class" possesses organic power and narrative sweep . . .
Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of war and its fallout with
meticulous precision.
Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times
" Here, as in her best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich
characters . . . and resists the trappings of a neat love story,
reminding us once again that in art and life we remain infinitely
mysterious.
"San Francisco Chronicle
"Praise for the Regeneration Trilogy
A masterwork . . . complex and ambitious.
"The" "New York Times Book Review"
It has been Pat Barker s accomplishment to enlarge the scope of the
contemporary English novel.
"The New Yorker"
A literary achievement . . . remarkable.
"San Francisco Chronicle
"
Some of the most powerful antiwar writing in modern fiction.
" The Boston Globe""
Praise for Toby's Room -Barker...has pursued [World
War I] through a remarkable series of novels: the much-admired
-Regeneration- trilogy...Life Class and now Toby's
Room.... [T]hese novels go far beyond a demonstration of the
powers of the historical imagination. Like most good works of
fiction, they're not so much about the events they depict as about
the resonance of those events, the way certain actions ripple
through people's lives.... Toby's Room takes large risks.
It's dark, painful and indelibly grotesque, yet it is also tender.
It strains its own narrative control to create in the midst of an
ordinary life a kind of deformed reality--precisely to illustrate
how everything we call 'ordinary' is disfigured by war. And it
succeeds brilliantly.--- John Vernon, New York Times Book
Review
-[T]he writing is lucid and often beautiful.---Thom Geier,
Entertainment Weekly
-A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London.---Joanna
Scutts, Washington Post -You get a glimpse inside Toby's
room in Pat Barker's poignant novel of the same name, but what you
remember are three real and very different English landmarks -- the
Slade, London's prestigious art academy; Cafe Royal, frequented by
the likes of Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf; and
the Queen's Hospital, opened in 1917 to serve injured British
soldiers in need of facial reconstruction.... No one evokes England
in all its stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker.
She is as uncompromising as Henry Tonks, as determined to render an
honest portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of
sight.... [She] sets the bar high.---Ellen Kanner, Miami
Herald -Haunting and complicated sibling love is at the heart
of Pat Barker's Great War novel.... [T]he 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.---Wall Street Journal -Barker deftly fused fact
and fiction in her hugely impressive -Regeneration Trilogy- by
turning the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen into
integral characters. She continues this blending in Toby's
Room.... [It] is in many ways Barker's most ambitious novel to
date.... As ever, the war scenes, and the accounts of the broken
men who inhabit them, are, by turn, gripping and unsettling.
However, in with the carnage and the trauma are those expert
passages on art as something both reflective and redemptive. This
is a powerful book that chronicles in various ingenious ways, and
from certain unique perspectives, 'the poignancy of a young life
cut short.'---Malcolm Forbes, San Francisco Chronicle -A Pat
Barker novel...is a novel that deals in some way with the horrors
of World War One, and it's a also a novel about art, but mostly
it's a novel about how art attempts to depict the horrors of World
War One. And this is how a Pat Barker novel attempts to depict the
horrors of World War One: bluntly.---Brock Clark, Boston
Globe
-[A]lthough Toby's Room is not billed as a prequel or sequel
to Life Class and the reader need not be familiar with that
novel in order to get to grips with this... [t]hose who do know
Barker's previous work will be struck by recurrences and
continuations in this novel not only of events in Life
Class, but in Regeneration, too.... [Barker's] prose
remains fresh, humanely business-like, crisp and unsentimental.
Images are scrupulously vivid, and the plot has real
momentum.---Freya Johnston, Telegraph (London) -A driving
storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the history of our
world.... For Barker, the wounded faces of the soldier-victims are
realities, and also emblems of what must never be forgotten or
evaded about war, and must continue - in her plain, steady,
compelling voice - to be turned into art.---Hermione Lee,
Guardian (London)
Praise for Life Class
-Beautiful and evocative . . . A coming-of-age story that
transcends the individual and gestures to the fate of a
generation.-
--People
-Life Class possesses organic power and
narrative sweep . . . Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of war
and its fallout with meticulous precision.-
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
-Here, as in her
best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich characters . . .
and resists the trappings of a neat love story, reminding us once
again that in art and life we remain infinitely mysterious.-
--San Francisco Chronicle
Praise for the Regeneration
Trilogy
-A masterwork . . . complex and ambitious.-
--The New York Times Book Review
-It has been Pat Barker's accomplishment to enlarge the scope of
the contemporary English novel.-
--The New Yorker
-A literary achievement . . . remarkable.-
--San Francisco Chronicle
-Some of the most powerful antiwar writing in modern fiction.-
-- The Boston Globe
Praise for Toby's Room "Barker...has pursued [World
War I] through a remarkable series of novels: the much-admired
"Regeneration" trilogy...Life Class and now Toby's Room.... [T]hese
novels go far beyond a demonstration of the powers of the
historical imagination. Like most good works of fiction, they're
not so much about the events they depict as about the resonance of
those events, the way certain actions ripple through people's
lives.... Toby's Room takes large risks. It's dark, painful and
indelibly grotesque, yet it is also tender. It strains its own
narrative control to create in the midst of an ordinary life a kind
of deformed reality--precisely to illustrate how everything we call
'ordinary' is disfigured by war. And it succeeds brilliantly."--
John Vernon, New York Times Book Review
"[T]he writing is lucid and often beautiful."--Thom Geier,
Entertainment Weekly
"A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London."--Joanna
Scutts, Washington Post "You get a glimpse inside Toby's room in
Pat Barker's poignant novel of the same name, but what you remember
are three real and very different English landmarks -- the Slade,
London's prestigious art academy; Cafe Royal, frequented by the
likes of Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf; and the
Queen's Hospital, opened in 1917 to serve injured British soldiers
in need of facial reconstruction.... No one evokes England in all
its stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker. She is as
uncompromising as Henry Tonks, as determined to render an honest
portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of
sight.... [She] sets the bar high."--Ellen Kanner, Miami Herald
"Haunting and complicated sibling love is at the heart of Pat
Barker's Great War novel.... [T]he 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."--Wall Street Journal "Barker deftly fused fact and
fiction in her hugely impressive "Regeneration Trilogy" by turning
the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen into integral
characters. She continues this blending in Toby's Room.... [It] is
in many ways Barker's most ambitious novel to date.... As ever, the
war scenes, and the accounts of the broken men who inhabit them,
are, by turn, gripping and unsettling. However, in with the carnage
and the trauma are those expert passages on art as something both
reflective and redemptive. This is a powerful book that chronicles
in various ingenious ways, and from certain unique perspectives,
'the poignancy of a young life cut short.'"--Malcolm Forbes, San
Francisco Chronicle "A Pat Barker novel...is a novel that deals in
some way with the horrors of World War One, and it's a also a novel
about art, but mostly it's a novel about how art attempts to depict
the horrors of World War One. And this is how a Pat Barker novel
attempts to depict the horrors of World War One: bluntly."--Brock
Clark, Boston Globe
"[A]lthough Toby's Room is not billed as a prequel or sequel to
Life Class and the reader need not be familiar with that novel in
order to get to grips with this... [t]hose who do know Barker's
previous work will be struck by recurrences and continuations in
this novel not only of events in Life Class, but in Regeneration,
too.... [Barker's] prose remains fresh, humanely business-like,
crisp and unsentimental. Images are scrupulously vivid, and the
plot has real momentum."--Freya Johnston, Telegraph (London) "A
driving storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the history of
our world.... For Barker, the wounded faces of the soldier-victims
are realities, and also emblems of what must never be forgotten or
evaded about war, and must continue - in her plain, steady,
compelling voice - to be turned into art."--Hermione Lee, Guardian
(London)
Praise for Life Class
"Beautiful and evocative . . . A coming-of-age story that
transcends the individual and gestures to the fate of a
generation."
--People
"Life Class possesses organic power and narrative sweep . . .
Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of war and its fallout with
meticulous precision."
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Here, as in her best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich
characters . . . and resists the trappings of a neat love story,
reminding us once again that in art and life we remain infinitely
mysterious."
--San Francisco Chronicle
Praise for the Regeneration Trilogy
"A masterwork . . . complex and ambitious."
--The New York Times Book Review
"It has been Pat Barker's accomplishment to enlarge the scope of
the contemporary English novel."
--The New Yorker
"A literary achievement . . . remarkable."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Some of the most powerful antiwar writing in modern fiction."
-- The Boston Globe
Praise for "Toby's Room"
"Barker...has pursued [World War I] through a remarkable
series of novels: the much-admired "Regeneration" trilogy..."Life
Class" and now "Toby's Room."... [T]hese novels go far beyond a
demonstration of the powers of the historical imagination.Like most
good works of fiction, they re not so much about the events they
depict as about the resonance of those events, the way certain
actions ripple through people s lives.... "Toby's Room" takes large
risks. It s dark, painful and indelibly grotesque, yet it is also
tender. It strains its own narrative control to create in the midst
of an ordinary life a kind of deformed reality precisely to
illustrate how everything we call ordinary is disfigured by war.
And it succeeds brilliantly." John Vernon, "New York Times Book
Review
"
"[T]he writing is lucid and often beautiful." Thom Geier,
"Entertainment Weekly
"
"A tantalizing and moving return to wartime London." Joanna Scutts,
"Washington Post" "You get a glimpse inside Toby s room in Pat
Barker s poignant novel of the same name, but what you remember are
three real and very different English landmarks the Slade, London s
prestigious art academy; Cafe Royal, frequented by the likes of
Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf; and the Queen s
Hospital, opened in 1917 to serve injured British soldiers in need
of facial reconstruction.... No one evokes England in all its
stiff-upper-lip gritty wartime privation like Barker. She is as
uncompromising as Henry Tonks, as determined to render an honest
portrayal of war. She will not allow us to sweep it out of
sight.... [She] sets the bar high." Ellen Kanner, "Miami Herald"
"Haunting and complicated sibling love is at the heart of Pat
Barker's Great War novel.... [T]he 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." "Wall Street Journal" "Barker deftly fused fact and
fiction in her hugely impressive "Regeneration Trilogy" by turning
the war poetsSiegfried SassoonandWilfred Oweninto integral
characters. She continues this blending in "Toby's Room."... [It]is
in many ways Barker's most ambitious novel to date....As ever, the
war scenes, and the accounts of the broken men who inhabit them,
are, by turn, gripping and unsettling. However, in with the carnage
and the trauma are those expert passages on art as something both
reflective and redemptive. This is a powerful book that chronicles
in various ingenious ways, and from certain unique perspectives,
'the poignancy of a young life cutshort.'" Malcolm Forbes, "San
Francisco Chronicle" "A Pat Barker novel is a novel that deals in
some way with the horrors of World War One, and it s a also a novel
about art, but mostly it s a novel about how art attempts to depict
the horrors of World War One. And this is how a Pat Barker novel
attempts to depict the horrors of World War One: bluntly." Brock
Clark, "Boston Globe
"
"[A]lthough "Toby s Room" is not billed as a prequel or sequel to
"Life Class" and the reader need not be familiar with that novel in
order to get to grips with this... [t]hose who do know Barker s
previous work will be struck by recurrences and continuations in
this novel not only of events in "Life Class," but in
"Regeneration," too....[Barker's] prose remains fresh, humanely
business-like, crisp and unsentimental. Images are scrupulously
vivid, and the plot has real momentum." Freya Johnston, "Telegraph"
(London) "A driving storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the
history of our world.... For Barker, the wounded faces of the
soldier-victims are realities, and also emblems of what must never
be forgotten or evaded about war, and must continue in her plain,
steady, compelling voice to be turned into art." Hermione Lee,
"Guardian" (London)
Praise for "Life Class
"
Beautiful and evocative . . . A coming-of-age story that transcends
the individual and gestures to the fate of a generation.
"People
" "Life Class" possesses organic power and narrative sweep . . .
Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of war and its fallout with
meticulous precision.
Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times
" Here, as in her best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich
characters . . . and resists the trappings of a neat love story,
reminding us once again that in art and life we remain infinitely
mysterious.
"San Francisco Chronicle
"Praise for the Regeneration Trilogy
A masterwork . . . complex and ambitious.
"The" "New York Times Book Review"
It has been Pat Barker s accomplishment to enlarge the scope of the
contemporary English novel.
"The New Yorker"
A literary achievement . . . remarkable.
"San Francisco Chronicle
"
Some of the most powerful antiwar writing in modern fiction.
" The Boston Globe""
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