Room at the Top (novel) Room at the Top (novel) Room at the Top is a novel by John Braine, first published in the United Kingdom by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1957, about the rise of an ambitious young man of humble origin, and the socio-economic struggles undergone in realising his social ambitions in post-war Britain. A film adaptation was made in 1959, followed in 2012 by a TV film. John Minton's cover art from the first edition was restored and used on the new edition by Valancourt Books in 2013. Joe Lampton, demobilised at the end of the Second World War, is starting in
Toby's Room and the plot has real momentum." In the "Times Literary Supplement", Mark Bostridge pointed out that the novel as whole owes much to the work of Vera Brittain, and that the fate of Toby Brooke, who killed himself rather than face a court-martial for homosexuality, is clearly based on what has been uncovered by Bostridge about the death of Vera Brittain's brother Edward Brittain, though Barker's novel does not acknowledge the source of the story. Toby's Room Toby's Room is English novelist Pat Barker's follow up novel to "Life Class" (2007). It continues to follow the fortunes of a group