‘Turbulent and dramatic, full of longing and death and lust, the yearning to cover one’s own life and way in the world.’ —David Mehegan, Boston Globe
An elegant and astute tale of desire and betrayal, science and medicine, from the ‘genius enchantress’ (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award.
In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war—but in the town of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. From within their isolated community, they grapple with some of the most thrilling scientific discoveries of their time—X-ray technology, chemical and biological weapons, changing theories of atomic structure—and their limitations. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and, sometimes, secret attachments. When the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice. With The Air We Breathe, Andrea Barrett has crafted a ‘majestic, breathtaking, [and] thrilling’ (San Diego Union-Tribune) novel that brilliantly illuminates the inescapable heartbreak of war.
Tentang Penulis
Andrea Barrett is the author of the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever, Voyage of the Narwhal, Servants of the Map, Natural History, and other works of fiction. She has received a Mac Arthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an NEA Fellowship, and the Rea Award for the Short Story, and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in the Adirondacks.