Noonday: A Novel

"Indelible, searing images haunt Noonday, Pat Barker’s ambitious historical novel. Depicting the lives of a group of young men and women struggling to survive in Blitz-era London, the book completes the trilogy Barker began with Life Class and Toby’s Room. Here we have a marriage and a love affair under a painful shadow, as the 500-pounders pummel London from above. It’s no mean feat to match the horror of an experience with horrific language and not venture into fright-show territory. Barker walks this line with sensory-thick prose; its sweep makes us truly appreciate life and death in a decimated landscape."