num_pages: 297
description: "An evocative panorama of America…on the cusp of enormous change" (Newsday) by the National Book Award-winning author of Ship Fever.In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war—but in the community 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. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and—sometimes—secret attachments. But when the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment.
language: English
title: The Air We Breathe
titlecomplete: The Air We Breathe
genres: Fiction, Historical, War, Novels, Adult Fiction, New York, Historical Fiction, Disease, Literary Fiction, Audiobook
ratings_count: 1619
places: Adirondack Mountains, New York
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Massachusetts Book Award
category: Fiction
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company