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Toby's Room starts in the July of 1917, three years after the events of Life School. Elinor Brooke is still painting, but her brother Toby is transport out to leading as a Medical Officer, a fact that she cannot bring herself to simply accept. Toby discovers himself on a single Channel crossing as Set Neville, a good friend - and aspiring suitor - of Elinor's from prior to the war. Intention on cementing his reputation as an musician, Kit never intended to serve abroad. Conscripted nonetheless, he becomes a stretcher-bearer allocated to aid Toby. It's exhausting, dangerous work, and Set resents Toby's repeated decisions to associated risk their own lives in attempting to save the wounded. Confronted daily by their mortality, both men find solace in erotic exploits, but Toby pushes the envelope further by seeking out men, risking a good deal in the process. When Kit recognizes Toby having sex with another soldier in the ruins of Ypres, he tells the chaplain. Two times later, Toby will go missing (presumed useless) during a bombardment as he operates to the aid of a soldier. News of her absent brother destroys the indifference Elinor has cultivated for so long. She monitors down Kit, who's by now wounded and back in London, but she doesn't believe that his version of events. That Set is cracking up doesn't help; he is soon transferred to a convalescent home where he will go spectacularly mad. Elinor instead turns to her German good friend Catherine for comfort, even as Catherine struggles to handle her own burdens, not least her nationality. Pat Barker is one of Britain's very finest novelists, and in Toby's Room she once again demonstrates her potential to eloquently present simple, moving truths. A multi-layered exploration of identification, Toby's Room produces the already empathetic and engaging character types of Life School, exploring by any means levels - and across all divides - what it means to be human being.
