Told in a gracefully quiet tone reminiscent of D.H. Lawrence--simple, descriptive, cool on the surface, churning with emotion below . . . with astute Susan Sontag-like ruminations on photography, viewer and subject, memory and responsibility . . . With a self-effacing tenderness, Harding brings her understated story to a powerful, emotional end. A haunting, subtle inquiry into complex and difficult matters. - Kirkus Reviews

Harding's novel is the finely tuned work of a writer exceptionally at ease with her craft and a testament to the power and poetry of clean and disciplined prose . . . The Gun Room focuses minutely on one man and in doing so it tells a deep history of the many men who, having seen war, struggle to be anything but soldiers. - Guardian

A powerful exposition about the struggle to bear witness to a spectrum of experiences, especially the experience of war. - Library Journal

Poignant . . . Notable historical fiction containing intense beauty, surrealistic pain, and revealing perception! - Historical Novel Society

In delicate, hypnotic prose, Harding describes the devastating effects of war and the trauma of bearing witness. - Sunday Express

A captivating, superbly written novel about the impossibility of escaping from the past. - Mail on Sunday

Graceful and considered . . . The dreamlike quality is heightened by Harding's sharply observed prose, conjuring up with great intensity the claggy English fields, Vietnam's pockmarked delta and Tokyo's ordered suburbs . . . As befits a writer adept at carefully cropped scenes, Harding has the measure of photography. The novel plays with its ability to captivate, shock, inform and misdirect. - Sunday Telegraph

Frankly glorious . . . a nearly stream-of-consciousness prose-poem immersion that is engaging and chilling, overwhelming the reader with the rush and confusion of Jonathan's experience. - The Brooklyn Rail

[An] accomplished work of fiction. - New York Times Book Review, on PAINTER OF SILENCE

The novel's magic lies in Harding's poignant but unsentimental portrayal of people who face such losses and yet find a kind of wholeness. - O, The Oprah Magazine, on PAINTER OF SILENCE

Harding writes with exquisite restraint . . . Her deceptively simple prose gives a startling beauty to the ordinary, and evokes great depth of suffering. - The Guardian on PAINTER OF SILENCE

At once delicate and sweeping . . . A novel about the passage of time, the senselessness of war, and the need to find and preserve meaning, this is a richly satisfying read. - Daily Mail on PAINTER OF SILENCE