The Air We Breathe

by Andrea Barrett

n fall 1916, Americans debate whether to enter the European war. But in an isolated community in the Adirondacks, the danger is barely felt: the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the public sanatorium. For all, time stands still. When a patient initiates a weekly discussion group, his well-meaning efforts lead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Book Club, Audiobook, Adult Fiction

Audio CD

First published October 17, 2007

About the author

Andrea Barrett is the author of The Air We Breathe, Servants of the Map (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Voyage of the Narwhal, Ship Fever (winner of the National Book Award), and other books. She teaches at Williams College and lives in northwestern Massachusetts.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25. This is my third Andrea Barrett read and 2nd full length novel by this author. This historical fiction takes place during the early 1900's. Leo, the main character an immigrant from Russia, is living in New York City when he is diagnosed with TB and sent to a sanatorium for indigent patients in upstate New York. There he crosses paths with a wealthy industrialist at a private cottage close by also being treated with the rest and fresh air cure for TB that was all medicine had to offer to these patients. Added into the mix are two young women, Eudora and Naomi. Around this main four characters misunderstanding and complications develop that ultimately end in tragedy.
The early going is quite slow and saved by Barrett's use of science woven expertly into the story line. Once the characters are developed the story takes off and I found it hard to put down. A most enjoyable and intriguing read. One I was glad to have picked up.

The audio was narrated by Jeff Woodman who did an excellent job. I had the print copy on my shelf and used that for reference and to speed my reading. Hope to add another Barrett soon as I just acquired a print of Natural History the most recent of Barrett's short story collections.

[Stelepami · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most excellent book; it even ties together some of the frustrating short stories in Ship Fever and manages to connect them to Voyage of the Narwhal, without intruding on the fascinating story set forth in its own pages.
Situated in a small town in New York state during the 1910's, the book focuses on the lives of patients in a tuberculosis sanatorium and their caretakers. Weaving romance with intellectual curiosity, Andrea Barrett draws the reader into the world she's created. Less focused on the origins of science than her other works I've read, The Air We Breathe still manages to convey the excitement of discovery and scientific method.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of very few books I've read that effectively utilizes the first-person plural for narration. Because of the characters and setting -- patients in a tuberculosis ward, drawn together only for the purpose of getting well and confined all day to laying around and gossiping about each other -- the "we" works well as a narrative voice, emphasizing that shared space and lack of privacy. Through the narrators, characters come to light and are fleshed out beautifully -- some who appear sympathetic at first turn out to be far from it, while others become unlikely heroes.

The historical setting makes for a fantastic backdrop, while many of the actions of the country's citizens preparing for war resonate with today's events. And the world of this particular tuberculosis sanatorium is quite fascinating.

[Kristi Lamont · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently shared with my husband that one of my goals for the calendar year was to attempt to rediscover the joy I felt as a younger reader when I would simply wander the stacks of my library to find a book to try and then really enjoyed it, vs seeking out a specific book because I had read or been told about it. This book does not literally (ha) fit that bill, but it came close; a family member simply handed it to me and said, "You need to read this, you will like it." So I did, without being told anything else or reading about it on Goodreads or elsewhere first. The parallels between the political climate of the era in which the book is set and the current one (2017) are quite unsettling (note: the book itself was published in 2007). "He'd found the rumors terrifying. He knew what happened when they spread, and he knew how the solitary were punished." Interesting perhaps only to me, this is the second book of historical fiction I've read in the past week that has been fantastic in terms of educating me on the granular realities of a given time and place.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in upstate New York’s Adirondack Mountains in 1916 as the U.S. prepares to enter WWI, this story follows the lives of patients and care providers at a tuberculosis sanitarium for the indigent. Near the beginning of the novel, a wealthy business man, also staying in the mountains to recover from TB – but at one of the private cure cottages only afforded to the privileged, decides to begin a Wednesday lecture series at the sanitarium, whereby every Wednesday evening a different person (starting with himself) would be in charge of educating the group about something in which they are quite interested. For example, Miles, the business man whose idea the group was, began by lecturing for the first three Wednesdays about his passion of paleontology. It is these Wednesday sessions that set off a string of events around which the story revolves.

A number of themes dominate this book including: science (Chemistry in particular), anti-German sentiments spurred by the war, conditions for and treatment of immigrants, fear of socialism (sound familiar these days…..?), friendship, fear, and unrequited love.

I liked this book, but at times felt like it was just dragging on, and on, and ………………………….. I wished it had just picked up the pace a little in the narrative and then it would have been a 4 star for me. The characters were interesting and well-developed whether I liked them or not. It had one very interesting aspect that I’m not sure I can remember ever reading in another book: It seemed to be written from the point of view of the omniscient, collective “we”. The “we” was the entire group of patients from the sanitarium. Strange to be reading from that point of view, and it kept me wondering throughout how or if the “we” would ever be fully explained – yet, lo and behold, at the end it was.

I recommend this book if any of the above themes interest you. If you enjoy this one, you may want to read more of Barrett’s books because, apparently, some of the characters from this story appear in her other books, as well. In the back of this book is a 2-page family tree making the connections for the reader about how various characters from many of her books are related to one another.

[Steve Smits · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am familiar with the villages of the Adirondacks where this novel is set. In Tupper Lake, there is an institution now called Sunmount Developmental Center that was the site in the late 19th & early 20th centuries of a tuberculosis sanitarium. I have visited Sunmount many times it my professional capacity (it now houses persons with developmental disabilities). Perhaps this is the state institution that Barrett uses as the Tamarack sanitarium. Nearby Saranac Lake is well-known for its history of cottages and homes that housed persons recouperating from TB.

This well-conceived and well-written novel weaves together many interesting themes. Tamarack is populated by persons of lower social classes; many are immigrants. In the private sanitaria nearby persons of means reside. They come together when a rich resident decides to sponsor lectures at the Tamarack institution. This allows the residents there to reveal their interesting histories and life stories. The narration in the novel intriguingly shifts between the second person plural to the third person. The "we" in the narration is never identified, but it serves to identify the community that forms the institution.

As in other works by Barrett there's an element of science, particularly about the treatment before antibiotics and about the early radiological technology that was at the institution. There is adept use of metaphor relating to this.

The book takes place at the onset of World War I and into America's entry into the war. The suspicion and hostility towards immigrants that was hugely manifest in America during the war gets deep attention here.

This is a thoughtful,multi-layered and intelligent book that is well worth attention.

[gaudeo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written novel, and though I haven't yet read Ship Fever, I already look forward to learning more about these characters and their relatives in that book. This one is an eerie book in a way, narrated in the second person plural, a collection of souls seeking rehabilitation from tuberculosis in upstate New York just before World War I. Its main characters, who comprise both residents and workers at the facility, become intertwined in various complicated ways, which inevitably lead to the book's tragic climax. Misunderstandings and assumptions abound, only adding to the tragedy. Although this won't rate as one of my favorite books, I will seek out others by Barrett, and look forward to the treasures I'm sure they hold.

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book so much less than I expected to. My husband thinks that perhaps reading a novel set in a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients might not have been a great choice for COVID-19 social distancing. What can I say? It seemed like the perfect choice to me. But this is an example of a historical novelist falling in love with her research and losing sight of her characters. She was so excited to tell her readers about the TB treatment settlements in upstate New York, the development of X-rays, nativism and xenophobia let loose by epidemics (TB, polio) and militarism/nationalism (WWI) that the novel feels chock full of carefully included trivia and emphatically underlined didacticism. Though at the center of the book is a love triangle, or, really, quadrangle as Miles loves Naomi who loves Leo who loves Eudora (who also seems to love Leo), those connections feel entirely schematic, as the historical backdrop and thematic signalling overtakes the characters' consciousness, desires, and fleeting impressions. The narrator(s) are the collective voice of the other patients in the TB ward, which works well, especially as Barrett explores the theme of group guilt and scapegoating. But this novel never came to life for me, unlike her short story collection Ship Fever: Stories, which was captivating and vivid.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Barrett’s fourth book since she hit her stride as a writer, her eighth over all. Her two best works are the short story collections, Ship Fever and Servants of the Map. Plus there is the very good novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal. All three have certain characters that overlap, scientists, immigrants, wanderers. Descendents of a couple of these characters make it into this novel set in an upstate New York tuberculosis sanatorium and its surrounding village, where wealthier tubercular patients come to stay in “cure cottages.” It’s 1916 so war is also in the air the patients breathe, many of them European immigrants.

Barrett is expert with setting, particularly when it is an historical setting. Her descriptive powers are both poetic and precise in capturing the telling details that make a past place come fully into our minds. Not just the physical details but the social, personal ones as well. A world view, as well as a view of the world. Among the main characters, Leo, a Russian-Jewish immigrant with a German name, Eudora, a worker in the sanatorium, Miles, a fussy, intellectual but self-absorbed factory owner, Naomi, the artistic and obsessive daughter of the managers of one of the cure cottages, Irene, a hospital technician, and Dr. Petrie, standout as richly drawn and complex individuals.

The plot, though, intrudes on several characters in ways that remind you that an author’s brain is bending things from time to time. It is believable, if a stretch, that Leo would accept something dangerous to safeguard that he doesn’t approve of as an act of friendship. It is not believable that Eudora and Dr. Petrie don’t question Leo, whom they’ve bonded with but don’t know so well, when they discover the contraption did belong to him. It’s believable that Miles would become tortured and twisted by twin emotional blows but not quite that he would devolve into a cartoon figure who builds a network of patriot spies that harass the innocent with callous abandon. Inexpert plot management undermines the credibility of the characters and the ultimate drama that plays out resolves itself with less than full conviction.

The novel has many satisfying moments and Barrett’s ability to write historical fiction with scientific themes and make them appealing and compelling is always remarkable. But The Air We Breathe seemed to get away from her just enough to take a potentially fine novel and leave it interesting but disappointing.

[PlushyPirate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on a recommendation from a professor because I write similar things, so part of my enjoyment of this book is from a purely nerdy writerly point of view. Fair warning!

The point of view of the book is odd -- it's mostly "we" with a lot of points where it becomes a specific person, often one that the "we" should know nothing about. It's a little disconcerting at first, but if you just roll with it, it works, and there's a good explanation for why, but you have to wait until the last paragraph to find out. The "we" voice is very strong and pulls you along even when you have no idea why "we" are talking.

The story itself has great characters and is thoroughly grounded in its time period. The throw-away details that make a scene come alive are always perfect (at one point, a doctor is writing a report, and finds himself repeating a word. He stares at it for too long, as we all have done, and realizes that the spelling suddenly looks off, but then sensibly moves on without further comment). I loved some of the characters, I wanted to wring the necks of others, and they just overall worked together beautifully.

Would definitely read again.

[jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Adirondack mountains at the brink of WWI. I really liked this setting and time period: there's great excitement over advancements in scientific technology, like x-rays and warfare, and the recently immigrated Jewish patients have interesting stories. But ultimately, I just found this book sort of dull. I didn't believe in many of the characters and got turned off by an overdone connection between patriotic zealotry then and now. I've never read anything else by Andrea Barrett; I feel like this didn't represent her best work.

[April H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the days immediately before and then immediately after the United States' entrance into WWI, I couldn't help but see the parallels to our time. Suspicion of "the foreigners" - isolationism, nationalism; all of these are themes of this book, which made me ask myself if my attitudes and prejudices are really that different from those who lived a century ago. Woven throughout, I loved the explanations of early-20th-century scientific discoveries and medical treatments and methods.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because I felt the need for something exceptionally well written, I turned to this Andrea Barrett novel, which I bought years ago at a bookstore that has since gone out of business; it did not disappoint.

Set in a village in the Adirondacks in 1916–17, this oh-so-sad story is told by an unnamed narrator who lives in a large public sanitorium for tuberculosis patients; we learn very quickly that this facility is for the poor and the destitute and that, in the village, is a boarding house where wealthy patients live very differently—and very well.

The primary characters include one of the residents of this boarding house, as well as the daughter of the owner of the house, Naomi; her friend, Eudora; and a newly arrived patient to the sanitorium, Leo Marburg.

Barrett captures beautifully the horrors of the time—not just the ravaging illness and the differences between rich and poor, but also the treatment of anyone with anything resembling a German name. This World War I–era story revisits the time of self-proclaimed patriots and the immigrants and other citizens of the United States whom these “patriots” consider to be traitors. She also writes of science—one of the things she does best—and of the breakthroughs of the era; Andrea Barrett never fails to remind me how fascinated I am with various facets of science and I always come away from her books knowing a little more than when I enter them.

There are so many pieces to this wonderful book that I cannot possibly summarize it; the characters are fully realized, the plot takes many turns, and the end—while perhaps not as dramatic as I imagined it would be—is not a tidy one…kind of like life, yes?

[Booknblues · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found The Air We Breathe to be an exceptional, multi-layered book. On the surface it appears to be so slow moving and yet so much is quietly happening.

Andrea Barrett chose to use the first person plural in the telling and at first it made me wonder, "just who is telling this story?" The tellers are the patients at a tuberculosis state sanitarium in the Adirondacks. They are charity patients, many who were German, Polish and Russian immigrants.

The treatment at that time during World War I, involved fresh air, absolute stillness and then allowing some small activities. The patients began having weekly educational sessions which are mentioned here:
Still, despite those diverting sessions, we missed Ephraim more than we might have expected. His steadiness and his easy sense of humor, which had often lightened our moods, disappeared just when they were most needed. Week after week, the news from the outside world was bad, and we found ourselves talking constantly about the war.

As the book unfolds we get a picture of the issues of the time, how war creates an "Otherness" which is mistrusted. Within the microcosm of this small world, made smaller by the disease relationships are formed and sometimes misunderstood. And while that is at the heart of the story it is not the whole story.

It really is quite a beautiful book which is really well written with well developed characters, who I was sad to leave behind when the book ended.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tamarack Lake, in upper state New York is a sanatorium tucked into the Adirondack Mountains. It is the fall of 1916, on the cusp of America entering the war. Wealthy tubercular patients live here, stuck in a monotonous routine. Gossip and rumors abound. This is a highly ambitious and smart novel, touching on science, anti-immigrant prejudice and mulitple romantic interludes. My issues were in the uneven narrative flow and convoluted storylines, along with keeping up with the myriad of characters. I prefer her short fiction but I still think it is worth reading, especially for Barrett fans.

[H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1917 at an upstate New York tuberculosis sanitarium, a group of patients form learning circle, each sharing an area of expertise with the group. The participants are reinvigorated by their involvement until three patients are killed and several patients and staff members are injured in a mysterious fire. The other patients, most of whom are immigrants themselves, seek to disassociate themselves from Leo Marsburg as part of a larger anti-immigrant sentiment. The plotline introduced in SHIP FEVER concludes here. A slow start, but beautiful storytelling, engaging characters, and fascinating glimpses into scientific developments of the time all held my interest.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tuberculosis patients in a sanitorium in upstate New York during WWI. The book moves very slowly, I thought cleverly mirroring the time these patients spent doing little but resting in the fresh air, 4 seasons of the year. But under the quiet, personality wars rage, people fight for standing amongst their peers, and romances blossom or wither. A misunderstanding results in a dangerous fire where not all survive and the inquisitions afterword leave a bitter taste among many. My mother in law spent time in a san after the second world war. I was thinking of her though I'm sure after 20+ years treatments would have been somewhat different.

[Angele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barrett brings her skill in mixing science with human history to this novel set in a tuberculosis sanitarium in New York's Adirondack Mountains in 1916. Human progress and human folly march side-by-side, like the WWI soldiers doomed by mustard gas and machine-gun fire. At Tamarack State, tubercular patients can see detailed X-rays of their damaged lungs--but in the absence of antibiotics, must rely for a "cure" on isolation, rest, fresh air, bland food, and cheerful thoughts. Cheerful thoughts are hard to maintain in a death-haunted utopia further strained by the divisions between rich and poor, native-born and immigrant, radical and conservative--as well as by passionate loves and hatreds. Fans of Barrett's Ship Fever will be interested to learn the fates of Nora and Ned Kynd of "Ship Fever," as well as the background of Leo Marburg, grandfather of Rose and Bianca Marburg of "The Marburg Sisters."

[Sean Cronin]

This book is set in a tuberculous sanitarium in 1916. It deals with the relationships between the patients and nurses and doctors.
It is a sad book - face it, the patients aren't getting out alive. And Barrett's prose reflects this sadness: careful, exact, mild. She deserves a lot of credit for pulling this off for 200 pages.
This story would have benefited from a bit more affect. To me, it was very flat. A Nurse and a patient are falling in love, but by golly Barret isn't going to up the pace or tension for that. A patient runs away, a Robber Barron appears, patients die - that calm language just keeps moving along.
There is skill involved in this flat-line writing and kudos to Barrett. But a writer of her abilities is capable of telling a story with more force and I wish she'd done so here.
Sean

[Tranna Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Follett -- Conflict and resentments break out in a small Adirondack town in the fall of 1916 when Miles Fairchild, a wealthy resident living in a "cure cottage" while being treated for tuberculosis, decides to start a discussion group with patients--mostly poor European immigrants--confined in the state-run sanitorium.

This book is one of the finalists for Columbia's One Read. It does cover the historical period in an interesting way (through the stories of the patients and workers at the sanatorium). It probably would not be of interest to most high school students. I found myself not that invested in any of the characters. Although that might have been because I read it quickly.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

First person plural narration fascinated me

I can't remember when I've read a book narrated by an invisible "We," in this case, the residents of a sanitorium for tuberculosis patients in the Adirondacks. The reader sees into the minds of a small cast of fascinating characters whose lives are touched by rising paranoia/xenophobia as "national security" comes to the forefront just before the beginning of World War I. A beautifully written book of love and loss, suspicion and jealousy, intellectual curiosity and some individuals' inability to see beyond what they want to see.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a very engrossing tale, gets lost in the weeds. Though a very compelling idea - TB patients, mostly immigrants, battle the physical disease and the disease of being the other, juxtapose a wealthy TB patient complete with arrogance and bigotry and pursuit of the other for crimes imagined. Much time was spent on him but...the two women characters (aides to the patients) would have been better to be the primary focus but they were only partially created leaving you hanging for more. Though all these characters, along with the, apparent, protagonist were interwoven but lacking.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a gift, together with The Magic Mountain. I know that some rave about The Magic Mountain, but I don't think I have ever read anything more boring. I can take boring, but not with a character like that. This book - The Air We Breathe - might not be so boring, but I have just discovered, at my advanced age, that a male protagonist immediately puts me off a book. This realization should serve to make future visits to the library much more productive.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in a tubercular sanitarian in upstate N.Y. in 1916. Touches on care of patients, paranoia of WWI, medicine of the time, treatment of immigrants.

[Jill Lucht · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good time to read a book about tuberculosis, science, as well as immigrant communities... I liked this book because it is an in-depth exploration of characters, plus has a surprising and very compelling climax. The beginning is a slow, steady character study, with foreshadowing to let you know something big is going to happen. Then the big thing happens, and you can’t put the book down.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow I was not as caught up in this as in her other books. A TB sanitorium, a TB town actually. Rich vs poor. And the panic over "subversive elements" and "foreigners" as the country slides into WWI

R

[Straw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I often love historical fiction and have a minor interest in diseases of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It could have been great. A tuberculosis sanitarium for immigrants....it all started out with good character development and quickly devolved into a pat ending...
grr.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four stars until the family tree on the last two pages tied up everything (and I do mean everything, and for two generations after the one that this book is concerned with, to boot) just a little (okay, a lot) too neatly.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that sticks to your ribs. I find myself thinking back to it over and over. This is the first Barret I've read but definitely one I'll read more from.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too many characters, needlessly switching from too many perspectives. Not a book I enjoyed in the slightest.