Noonday by Pat Barker

 

This is the third in a trilogy of books written about the lives of the English during World War II.  It follows three former art students.  Elinor and Paul are married while Kit is back in London following a divorce while his former wife and child are in the United States.  All three met as students at the Slade School Of Art.  Both men fell in love with Elinor but Paul won her heart.

The three are involved in the nightly fight against the bombings by Germany.  Elinor and Kit are ambulance drivers while Paul is part of the teams that search the rubble after the nightly bombing for survivors.  It is grueling, exhausting work and during their days they only want to sleep.  When Paul and Elinor's house is also bombed, they drift apart, Elinor going into the country to stay in a cottage while Paul stays behind and falls into an affair with a woman he works with.  When Elinor discovers this, she comes back to London and takes a flat without Paul, determined to paint and live life on her own.  But Kit sees this as his chance and attempts to win Elinor.

Pat Barker is best known for her World War I trilogy about the men and women who fought this war and the toll it took on them.  This trilogy centers on World War II and she has also written one about the women of the Trojan war.  While set during wars, her novels focus on the everyday lives of those caught up in lifechanging events that affect entire nations.  Although this book of part of a trilogy, I found it works as a stand alone novel as well, although it left me with the desire to go back and read the first two in the lives of Kit, Elinor and Paul.  Of all the wartime novels I've read, this one gives the reader the best idea of what it was like to live in London during the nightly bombings where any day one might wake up and find their home or their family gone forever.   This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction.