Title: The Air We Breathe
First published: 2007
Description: "An evocative panorama of America...on the cusp of enormous change" (Newsday) by the National Book Award-winning author ofShip 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. Reading group guide included.
Subjects: Immigrants, Fiction, Patients, Tuberculosis, Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.), Communicable diseases, History, World War, 1914-1918, Fiction, historical, Fiction, medical, Adirondack mountains (n.y.), fiction, Fiction, historical, general
Places: New York (State), New York
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS3552.A7327 A35 2007