The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett

The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett

In the autumn of 1916, Americans are debating whether to enter the First World War. There are preparedness parades, and headlines report German spies. But in an isolated community in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, the danger is barely felt. At Tamarack Lake the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, many of them recent immigrants from Europe, fill the sanatorium.Here, in the crisp air, time stands still. Prisoners of routine and yearning for absent families, the inmates, including the newly arrived Leo Marburg, take solace in gossip, rumor, and secret attachments.An enterprising patient initiates a weekly discussion group. When his well-meaning efforts lead instead to tragedy and betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment. Andrea Barrett pits power and privilege against unrest and thwarted desire, in a spellbinding tale of individual lives in a nation on the verge of extraordinary change.

"Barrett eloquently blends scientific elements like TB and chemistry with her diverse characters’ hopes and heartbreaks to bring the book to crackling life" -- Entertainment Weekly
"[Barrett’s] gift for story, for mining America’s past, and her ability to construct a specific moment in the quest for knowledge are remarkable." -- Philadelphia Inquirer
"Every page seems so vibrant, its people so alive…Majestic, breathtaking, thrilling." -- San Diego Union-Tribune
"Barrett’s writing has a quality of reflective mildness, a restraint which some might call quiet…There is an elegance of tone, but an enormous amount happens. The Air We Breathe is turbulent and dramatic, full of longing and death and lust, the yearning to cover one’s own life and way in the world." -- Boston Globe
"[The Air We Breathe] is a deft and quietly wrenching tale of human misunderstanding." -- Library Journal
"Details of New York tenements and of the sanitarium’s regime are vivid and engrossing." -- Publishers Weekly
"[A] potent, engrossing portrayal of life at a turn-of-the-century sanatorium…[Barrett has] an unusual—and utterly haunting—narrative voice." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Barrett’s powers of historical evocation, especially her knowledge of the scientific preoccupations of the time, are impressive." -- The New Yorker
"Here [in The Air We Breathe], as in several of her other works of fiction, including the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever, Barrett enriches her story with science…In fact, her style, always stylish and exact, is at its most compelling when she’s describing her characters’ engagement in their scientific studies." -- The Atlantic

Andrea Barrett is the author of the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map, among other works of fiction. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Award, she lives in the Adirondacks.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780393333077
ISBN 10	0393333078
Title	The Air We Breathe
Author	Andrea Barrett
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	WW Norton & Co
Year published	2008-12-16
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.