The Dark Circle

by Linda Grant

The Second World War is over, a new decade is beginning but for an East End teenage brother and sister living on the edge of the law, life has been suspended. Sent away to a tuberculosis sanatorium in Kent to learn the way of the patient, they find themselves in the company of army and air force officers, a car salesman, a young university graduate, a mysterious German woman, a member of the aristocracy and an American merchant seaman. They discover that a cure is tantalisingly just out of reach and only by inciting wholesale rebellion can freedom be snatched.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Adult, Contemporary

310 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2016

About the author

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

Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.

In 1985 she returned to Britain and became a journalist. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian, where between 1997 and 1998 she also had a weekly column in G2. She contributed regularly to the Weekend section on subjects including the background to the use of drug Ecstasy (for which she was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award in 1996), body modification, racism against Romanies in the Czech Republic, her own journey to Jewish Poland and to her father's birthplace and during the Kosovo War, an examination of the background to Serb nationalism.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Grant’s seventh novel stars Lenny and Miriam Lynskey, nineteen-year-old twins and representatives of London’s small Jewish population. It is 1949; Miriam works in a flower shop and Lenny has just been rejected by the army at his National Service medical appointment. He has tuberculosis and there are worries about Miriam’s lungs, too, so it’s off to the Gwendo (the Gwendolyn Downie Memorial Hospital for the Care of Chronic Cases of Tuberculosis, that is) for both of them. We briefly see them through the eyes of the cab driver who takes them down to Kent: “The pair in the back were common as muck.”

It’s clear this is no ordinary sanatorium; it has a “reputation for being a modern, iconoclastic facility for the very best people,” like Lady Anne and Miriam’s Oxford-educated roommate, Valerie. The Lynskeys, as NHS rather than private patients, may be looked down on as a different class of people, but they bring fresh life into the place. That’s doubly true of new arrival Arthur Persky, a twenty-six-year-old Navy man from Brooklyn. He enlivens the bleak, clinical surroundings with rock ’n roll music and a certain sex act. The Gwendo, once a place of boredom and conformity, now seems like a site of quiet rebellion.

One of Grant’s key skills is characterization, and short chapters from different characters’ perspectives give us access to their backstories. I especially liked getting to know German refugee Hannah Spiegel. Kafka, oddly enough, forms a link between her and the Lynskeys: Valerie has been reading The Metamorphosis aloud to Miriam to try to educate her; Miriam, absolutely captivated, gets Lenny in on the listening sessions, and he asks Hannah to interpret the book for them since she’s read the original German. “No, no-one can explain, it’s not possible to do so,” she replies. “You experience it in your way, it’s a labyrinth you must pass through but the labyrinth is yourself.”

The same might be said of tuberculosis. Each of these patients has the same disease, so Dr. Limb and his nurses sometimes treat them as interchangeable, yet each medical journey is individual and unpredictable. The typical approach was a pneumothorax injection to temporarily collapse one lung so it could ‘rest’, but in extreme cases some patients would have ribs removed. Great hopes were pinned on streptomycin treatment, and on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish day of reckoning in 1950, Dr. Limb takes on the role of God, weighing up who live and who will die in the coming year. He has seven courses of streptomycin to distribute, but who will get them? The weakest? The woman he’s in love with? Or the ones with the most chance of improving? Meanwhile, Miriam’s condition is worsening, and Lenny and Persky decide they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure she gets one of those injections.

I was impressed by how Grant evokes her period setting through dialogue, slang and music. The novel’s tone is wry yet melancholy, almost nostalgic. The terrific opening paragraph gives you a taste of the no-nonsense style:

London. Big black old place, falling down, hardly any colour apart from a woman’s red hat going into the chemist with her string bag, and if you looked carefully, bottle green leather shoes on that girl, but mostly grey and beige and black and mud-coloured people with dirty hair and unwashed shirt collars, because everything is short, soap is short, joy is short, sex is short, and no one on the street was laughing so jokes must be short too. Four years after the war and still everything is up shit creek.

The final 60 pages are set in the future and reveal what happens to Lenny, Miriam and key others in the decades after they leave the sanatorium. These former patients are bound together in the title’s “dark circle” of suffering, but because TB has been eradicated no one remembers their pain. “From a death sentence to a course of antibiotics in a decade,” Lenny marvels. The novel loses momentum a bit in this short final section. I felt it would have been more powerful if Parts II and III were cut and the book simply ended with the plot coming full circle and Lenny and Miriam leaving the Gwendo in a taxi. But this is a minor quibble. The Dark Circle does what the best fiction does: drops you right into a situation you’ve never thought about and can’t begin to imagine—until a first-class novelist does so for you.

It was a delight to participate in my first blog tour. My thanks to Poppy Stimpson of Little, Brown for the free review copy.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 2 out of 5]

she had been maimed by an illness that [in the 21st Century] was so far out of fashion it might have been a wartime recipe for pink blancmange made from cornflour when everyone these days ate real chocolate mousse and tiramisu. TB was spam fritters and two-bar electric fires ………….. tubercolosis had died with the end of people drinking nerve tonics and Horlicks.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book is the glimpse into what is effectively a forgotten world (but one less than 65 years ago) when TB was still close to an incurable disease and one only treated with an austere regime of complete rest in sanatoriums, alongside crude physical intervention.

It was nice being in a new decade with a pleasant number, the curly 5, the fat 0, no longer the sharp points of a 4, which would rearrange themselves into a swastika if they felt like it, and had done …. War was in the process of becoming a memory, not a situation to be endured and survived. Anything new had to be a good thing.

A clear theme behind the book is of British society on the cusp of change from the 1940s to the 1950s: the end of rationing; the rise of the National health service and its increasing take-over of private health facilities; the aspirations and achievements of the Labour government set against the increasing realisation they could be voted out of power; the struggles of a free-to-use service being able to cope with increase demand and the costs of drugs which cure a previously fatal condition; social mobility struggling against entrenched class distinctions alongside a breakdown in traditional forms of deference, for example to medical professionals, and an increasing trend for people to demand the right to decide on their own treatment; the rise of new entertainment mediums (television and rock and roll). Its clear also that Grant sees at least some of these themes as reflecting issues in 21st Century Britain.

However I simply failed to engage with the characters in this book – which matters in this case because clearly the reader is meant to engage with and care about those characters (and even is meant to be interested in the last 60 pages, which first of all cover many of the characters meeting 3 years after they leave the Sanatorium) and then picks up their life stories from the present day. The crucial plot development seemed implausible to me, and the eventual career of Lenny, which I found of almost no interest, revealed in the acknowledgements to be based on the story of an actual television comedy writer.

Overall I felt I would have gained more enjoyment from a lengthy Sunday magazine feature on the pre-antibiotic treatment of TB than from this fictional account.

[Laura Spira · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have enjoyed Linda Grant’s earlier books but found this one disappointing. Post-war London and the cultural changes of the 1950s are effectively sketched but the main characters
seem shallow and rather stereotypical. The story centres on the experiences of a motley group of patients at a TB sanatorium. They have little in common but forge apparently enduring relationships in this isolated environment, although I found the last sections of the book unconvincing on this. I didn't find the characters sufficiently engaging to want to know about their later lives: was all the detail about Lenny's career with ITV really necessary? And repeated mention of his Hugo Boss suits - product placement?

My mother was treated for TB in a similar institution during the war, a slightly earlier time than this book is set. Much of the description of "Gwendo" tallies with my recollection of her experiences but her treatment (which carried on regularly until I was about two years old) was always referred to as AP, artificial pneumothorax: in the book it is just called pneumothorax, a small detail that bothered me.

I had the feeling while reading that Ms Grant was a bit out of her depth: her earlier books have offered very convincing depictions of milieux and characters she has known well but this seemed to be an environment that she had researched but not fully imagined, especially in the general atmosphere of the sanatorium, an environment much more powerfully evoked for example in "Your presence is requested at Suvanto" by Maile Chapman.

(I read a free copy supplied by Netgalley)

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some lovely writing here but I was bored out of my tree. I knew it was time to bail at the 20% mark when one of the main characters said he wanted to escape the TB sanatorium due to sheer boredom and I finally came alive, cheering him on. I got out, but not that poor bugger.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had a copy of Linda Grant’s most recent novel “The Dark Circle” on my shelf since it was published in November, but for whatever reason I didn’t get to reading it despite being extremely moved by her previous novel “Upstairs at the Party.” So I was delighted to find it on the Baileys Prize longlist as it gave me a great excuse to get it down and finally read it. Although this novel is very different from her previous one I was immediately drawn in by the eloquence of Grant’s prose with its excellent witty dialogue and vibrant characters. The story concerns a brother and sister (Lenny and Miriam) in 1950s London who contract tuberculosis. The city and social environment are vividly rendered where the continued deprivation of the war and effects of the bombings are still intensely felt. A very different scene is evoked when the pair are taken to a sanatorium in Kent which was once an exclusive facility for the privileged but it’s now taking in patients under the new national health care system. This creates an intermingling of people from all walks of life who are plagued by this illness and pining for a rumoured miracle cure. The result is a spectacular evocation of the passage of time and changing values through the lives of several fascinating characters.

Read my full review of The Dark Circle by Linda Grant on LonesomeReader

[Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the concept of this - following the patients in a 1950s British sanatorium for cases of tuberculosis. Grant so beautifully captures the way the world of that time was shifting beneath people's feet architecturally, technologically, and medically. Along the way, she uses a light, comic touch and a meandering plot to weave together ethical, historical, and personal questions. But I think The Dark Circle suffers from inconsistent tone, repetitiveness, and blandness. Maybe I would've loved it more if I hadn't read it for a prestigious lit prize, but I just didn't find it very impressive or noteworthy. Still, if the subject matter interests you, this is a great read.

[Mary Durrant · Rating 2 out of 5]

What promised to be an interesting subject just didn't deliver.
I couldn't gel with any of the characters and after an excellent start the story somewhat rambled on.
Although set after WW2 not much was mentioned so you had no feeling for the time it was set.
So disappointed, back to a classic I think!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Resh (The Book Satchel) · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCELLENT. A must-read.

[Rita Monticelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scroll down for the English version.

Il circolo degli ex-malati di TBC

Questo libro di Linda Grant, che avevo già abbastanza apprezzato in “Upstairs at the Party”, trasporta il lettore in un sanatorio britannico degli anni cinquanta dello scorso secolo in cui venivano tenuti, o forse la parola più giusta è segregati, i malati di tubercolosi. La storia si svolge nel periodo in cui era stata già scoperta la streptomicina, ma ancora non era arrivata nel Regno Unito, per cui i personaggi vivono nella speranza di poter essere curati prima o poi e non fare la fine di tutti i loro predecessori.
La storia segue in particolare due gemelli adolescenti londinesi, Lenny e Miriam, che vengono inviati in un sanatorio nel Kent dal Sistema Sanitario Nazionale britannico. Qui convivono con persone di ben altra estrazione sociale, ma la malattia che accomuna tutti appiana le differenze e permette la creazione di rapporti molto stretti.
L’autrice usa toni a tratti leggeri nel raccontare le vicende dei protagonisti, ma accanto a ciò descrive i trattamenti dolorosi, crudeli e inutili, oltre che l’abuso psicologico, cui tutti i pazienti vengono sottoposti. Il contrasto tra le due cose lascia il segno durante la lettura, perché passi dalla risata all’orrore, alla rabbia e alla tristezza, e ti porta a rimuginare quando chiudi il libro.
I personaggi escono dalle pagine e le loro banali vicissitudini quotidiane, nel modo in cui ci vengono mostrate dall’autrice, diventano quasi avvincenti, come pure si rimane scioccati nell’entrare nella mente malata di alcuni di essi, come in quella del medico che dovrebbe curarli.
Per me è stata anche un’occasione per conoscere meglio il periodo storico in relazione ai tentativi maldestri di trattamento della tubercolosi, prima che fossero disponibili delle cure efficaci e definitive.
Non ho messo la quinta stellina per via del finale dolceamaro. Forse era difficile inventarne uno migliore, vista la storia, ma, come era capitato con l’altro libro dell’autrice che ho letto, ho avuto la netta impressione che ci sia stato un calo di tensione e un eccessivo trascinarsi nella parte finale del libro.


The circle of former TB patients

This book by Linda Grant, who I had already quite appreciated in “Upstairs at the Party”, transports the reader to a British sanatorium in the 1950s where tuberculosis patients were kept, or perhaps the most correct word is segregated. The story takes place at a time when streptomycin had already been discovered, but had not yet arrived in the UK, so the characters live in the hope that they can be cured sooner or later and not end up like all their predecessors.
The story specifically follows two teenage London twins, Lenny and Miriam, who are sent to a sanatorium in Kent by the British National Health System. Here they live with people from a very different social background, but the disease that unites all of them smoothes out the differences and allows the creation of very close relationships.
The author uses tones that are sometimes light in telling the stories of the protagonists, but alongside this she describes the painful, cruel and useless treatments, as well as the psychological abuse, to which all patients are subjected. The contrast between the two leaves its mark as you read, as you go from laughter to horror, anger and sadness, and makes you mull over when you close the book.
The characters come out of the pages and their banal daily vicissitudes, in the way they are shown to us by the author, become almost compelling, as well as one is shocked to enter the sick mind of the doctor who is supposed to cure them.
For me it was also an opportunity to learn more about the historical period in relation to the clumsy attempts to treat tuberculosis, before effective and definitive cures were available.
I didn’t put the fifth star on because of the bittersweet ending. Perhaps it was difficult to come up with a better one, given the story, but, as happened with the other book by the author that I read, I had the distinct impression that there was a drop in tension and excessive dragging into the final part of the book.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel wrapped around the shocking treatment of Tuberculosis in the immediate post World War Two period, started off with great promise.
Unfortunately, the deeper I got into the book, the less I respected or enjoyed either the characterisation or writing style.

The wrap around premise: the medieval attitudes towards, and treatment of TB (aka. Consumption), is horrifyingly fascinating. Linda Grant references true events of unbelievable ignorance and cruelty.

I am glad to have read The Dark Circle, to have learned about the origins of twentieth century sanatoriums, of medically collapsed lungs, of broken ribs, of Streptomycin.
Grant takes her historical, 1950's reality inspiration further with reference to the production of pykrete in Smithfield, London; experimentation of a sort even weirder than the goings on at the "Gwendoline" centre.
So far, five stars all the way.

But, The Dark Circle storyline descends into farce, and the disparate group of poorly inmates all bond and unite in a strange, totally unconvincing, finale. The last quarter of the book, parts two and three, are unnecessary, repetitive, unsatisfactory.
Few of the characters are well drawn.
Uncle Manny is a stereotypical spiv, useful to the writer only to force dramatic changes in the narrative.
Arthur Persky is a (poor)facsimile of Ken Kelsey's McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.
Peter Lezards Labour MP is nothing more than an unconvincing contrivance to spice up the plot twist.

So what a strange read.
I would be surprised if this won the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bailey's Women's Prize for fiction 8/16

At one point during The Dark Circle, One of the main protagonists, Valarie is describing Kafka to the other lead protagonist Lenny. Here Grant plonks a perfect analogy for all the characters in this novel are living in a Kafkaesque situation.

The Dark Circle is primarily about the post war sanatorium culture, where people suffering from TB were placed in buildings which resembled hotels and subjected to both utter boredom and healing techniques which would be seen as cruel and unusual by today's standards. During this time the NHS was established, which meant that people from all sorts of backgrounds were allowed to enter sanatoriums.

The two main characters of The Dark Circle, twins Lenny and Miriam are admitted and a lot of the novel focuses one their life and daily interactions with the other patients; the bookish Valarie, the boisterous American Arthur and the German Hannah. Eventually the main protagonists are cured but they cannot shake off the sanatorium's influence, which affects them, even in old age.

While the writing style is good, The Dark Circle has got flaws. The American character is stereotypical, and acts like something out of a 70's sitcom, the LBGT aspect of the novel is good but could have been better and the last 50 pages or so feel rushed. It still is an enjoyable novel and some of Grant's paragraph sparkle with humor. I am a bit baffled why this one made the Bailey's shortlist though.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally published on my blog here

So, this is another book I read as part of my goal of reading all the books shortlisted for the Bailey’s Prize. I was a bit hesitant at first about this as the blurb didn’t look very interesting at all however I ended up being enchanted by this novel.

The main two characters are Lenny and Miriam who are twin siblings both diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanatorium to recover. While there, they have to deal with the variety of treatments and deal with the knowledge that a cure exists but is not yet available. The story follows them as they make friends and just cope with their time there.

The novel moves at a very slow pace, showing the monotony of their day-to-day lives and the issues they deal with. It also is excellent at portraying a view of England just after the second world war and some of the best parts of the novel were just focusing on the society and how it was changing. The characters were all excellent and I enjoyed reading about their growth as they got to know each other and deal with the fact that the once exclusive sanatorium is now open to the “lower classes” due to the NHS.

This book is a delightful journey focusing on sanatoriums in the period of their decline and how it affected the characters both while they were there and the lingering effects it had on the rest of their lives. The end of the book shows us the characters in the future and how their lives developed after leaving the sanatorium which I really enjoyed as I’d grown attached to many and was keen to find out what had happened to them.

I can definitely see why this book was shortlisted for the Bailey’s Prize and it’s definitely one of my favourites so far. I would definitely recommend it and it makes me glad I’m doing this personal challenge as it’s the sort of book I never would have picked up myself.

[Anni · Rating 3 out of 5]

At an isolated TB sanatorium, a closed community of all ages and backgrounds is subjected to an authoritarian medical regime with its echoes of concentration camps and experimental procedures. The stirring of rebellion against patient conformity acts as an apt analogy for the postwar erosion of class distinction and deference to authority. Evocative period detail in slang and music helps to illuminate this entertaining piece of social history.

Reviewed for Whichbook.net

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read and very much enjoyed a couple of Linda Grant's books to date. With all of the hype currently surrounding this novel, particularly as it has just been shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize, I was left distinctly unimpressed. Whilst I am all for historical novels set in and around the sanitorium, this fell rather flat for me.

The Dark Circle is interesting in terms of its historical setting, and whilst the story begins in rather a promising manner, there is no real consistency to the piece. I also felt that it was sorely lacking in terms of its characters. They were shallow and stereotypical; the only one whom I wanted to know more about when she was introduced was Valerie, and she soon succumbed to being just as predictable, naively privileged as she was, as Lenny and Miriam. The characters in The Dark Circle are not realistic enough to carry the whole, and the lack of plot hooks or twists makes the whole feel rather lacking.

The Dark Circle has an awful lot of promise, but I am afraid that I did not find it lived up to this. The final part of the novel felt altogether unnecessary; rather trite and irrelevant. I did not care enough about the protagonists to want to know what happened to them in their post-sanitorium lives. Sadly, The Dark Circle disappointed me, and I am now in two minds as to whether to read any more of Grant's novels in future.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Post-war England is revealed through consumptive patients in a TB sanatorium. Not a period or an ailment I knew much about. This is also the birth of the NHS. The characters and their relationships are all vividly drawn but my favourites were German refugee Hannah and American lady pleasuring sailor Persky. This had me completely engaged and I really enjoyed it without crazy loving it. I love historical fiction that's not set during a war.

[Janet Emson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twins Lenny and Miriam are shocked to discover they have both contracted Tuberculosis. Whisked away to a sanatorium in the Kent countryside, they soon find themselves mixing with people they would never normally be associated with. They bring with them a rebelliousness, one which they discover may not be what sees them through their stay in the Gwendo, but which may have a lasting effect on themselves and their fellow patients.

Don’t read this book expecting a happy story. It is quite a dark tale, the claustrophobia and intuitionalism of the sanatorium hanging heavy over the story. The early treatment of TB was often barbaric and Linda Grant’s narrative made it all too easy to imagine the distress and pain the patients went through. The story is peppered with light moments, the slight rebellions of the characters, some which caused less ripples on the surface than others.

There are a variety of characters, each unique, showing that the terrible illness crossed social boundaries, was indiscriminate with those it infected. Linda Grant’s characterisation meant that each was well drawn, bringing their own slant to the story. Lenny and Miriam were not particularly likeable, at least at first. They are quite selfish characters, thinking only of what betters their own lives and quite condensing and dismissive of others who are different to them. As their stay in the sanatorium grew, so did their characters, Lenny becoming less gregarious and more thoughtful, Miriam stepping out somewhat from behind her twin’s shadow. This is very much a character driven piece, a study in how the fledgling NHS started to work away at social boundaries and class divide and though set in the 50s, echoes some of the political and social climate of today.

There are echoes of a prison to the sanatorium and indeed many of the patients refer to themselves as inmates, and become institutionalised. There is little freedom for the patients. The fitter of them can attend the local village but most are ordered to remain in bed, sleeping outside in the cold or shut away from the outside world. It is this sense of imprisonment, of control by others that leads some of the characters to rebel, to upset the status quo in order to survive, both physically and mentally.

The Dark Circle of the novel’s title can be many things. It is the scars on the lungs of the tuberculosis sufferers. It is the circle created by those patients not chosen for the innovative cure. It is the ripple left by the rebellious actions of the patients and the condescending view of the new National Health service by others. It is the group of survivors from the sanatorium, forever bound together by their time in the Gwendo.

I did read this in two parts, with a gap between the second reading, but I am glad I picked up the book again. This is not an easy read, nor is it light entertainment. It is however a well written, intriguing and thought-provoking tale.

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Grant’s latest social commentary is set in England in the late 1940s. England is a bleak place, still struggling under the privations of WWII. Change is afoot however, with an appetite to demolish the old and substitute brand new.
Teenage twins Lenny and Miriam, second generation Jewish immigrants are optimistic about their future, that is until both are diagnosed with Tuberculosis, a disease widespread in the country at that time. They are dispatched to a sanatorium in Kent for a cure. The Gwendo has previously only been for private patients, but has now opened its doors to all and sundry under the new National Health Service scheme.
Never having been away from London before, this feels like a foreign experience to them from the outset. The countryside surrounding the remote institution feels alien, as does the assumed automatic acceptance of their good fortune in being sent there. They are unwilling to learn the virtue of patience which seems to distinguish good patients from bad (the paying patients feel this might be a problem because of their class, or lack of it). The medical staff are used to patients who defer to their greater wisdom and authority, but this mini rebellion also brings with it a breath of fresh air.
This is an interesting and chilling read- chilling because it is based on the real life experiences in history recent enough to be just within my lifetime. The Medical Director of the sanatorium prescribed the only treatments he had at his disposal. These varied from long term bed rest in cold conditions to dreadful, useless, crippling surgical interventions, none of which worked. This is made all the more appalling as the cure in the form of a cocktail of antibiotics had just about been proven, but the cost prevented its widespread application.
A potentially depressing story such as this needs good characters to make the reading a good experience. This book has them, in particular, the quirky, unselfconscious Miriam, and the surprisingly interesting middle class Somerville student Valerie. American merchant seaman Persky has virtually all the females swooning with his interesting wooing techniques. And, despite a disastrous attempt at taking matters into his own hands, one which leaves an unrequited debt between brother and sister, things might not end as badly as could have been expected.
We are left musing on the fact that TB is still prevalent today around the world, there are strains now which are antibiotic resistant.
Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for this experience

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 1950/51 Jewish twins Lenny and Miriam Lynskey have both been diagnosed with TB and are sent from their East London home to a sanatorium, which has just come under the aegis of the newly introduced NHS. There they meet a varied group of fellow sufferers and form friendships and alliances that help them through their current ill-health and some of which sustain them throughout their lives. They in their turn bring new life and outlook to the sanatorium. As they wait and hope for a cure, news of the newly discovered wonderdrug streptomycin filters through. The question is – how long can the Lynskeys wait for their turn to try the new medication. Confining a group of people in a sanatorium or other enclosed society isn’t a new idea, of course, but it remains an effective way of examining society, and here Linda Grant vividly portrays the emerging post-war society that Lenny and Miriam are heralds of. The old deference and respect for authority is breaking down. Anti-Semitism is still around but it’s not going to hold the Lynskeys back. Young people want a good time and they're not prepared to wait for permission to go and grab what’s on offer. The NHS is transforming health care for rich and poor alike and a new world seems to be opening up. We follow Lenny and Miriam throughout their lives, and it’s a compelling tale. I very much enjoyed this book, exploring as it does the particulars of 1950s England but also the more eternal ones of love, loyalty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. An enjoyable and interesting read.

[SueLucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy courtesy of Little, Brown Group via NetGalley, many thanks.

I’ve read almost all of Linda Grant’s novels and she can always be relied on to tell a story to make me think. This was no exception. I had, of course, heard of tuberculosis and that it has not yet been eradicated. Somehow, though, my idea of a sanatorium was like a health spa, a luxurious retreat where people went to take it easy and recuperate. As this book shows, this was a long way from the reality - the treatment in pre-antibiotic days was brutal and life-threatening in itself. We follow the experiences of a small group of patients in a Kent sanatorium in 1949. Into the atmosphere of pre-war gentility are injected first a pair of teenaged twins from brash, war-torn London, receiving treatment for free under the new NHS, and then an American merchant seaman complete with new-fangled jeans, cowboy boots, rock and roll music and a rebellious attitude. New friendships are formed and romance is in the air. Then there are rumours of a miracle cure - when is it going to be available and who will get it? All of this threatens to upset the smooth running of the sanatorium and its administrators are wary.

Linda Grant’s writing is terrific, particularly the dialogue, and I got a real sense of a new Britain emerging. She creates spirited and engaging characters I was rooting for throughout. Informative without being in the least dull, I’d not hesitate to recommend this book.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost didn't finish this book but am so glad I did.


It is the end of the war and two Jewish East End twins Lenny and Miriam find themselves in a sanatorium when Lenny is diagnosed with TB and his sister is also taken there in case he has infected her.


The sanatorium is in Kent, far away from their London roots, where everything is strange and frightening but their close bond with each other enables them to survive in this alien place. Miriam is separated from Lenny straight away and has to have bed rest sharing a room with Valerie who has been in the sanatorium some time. Lenny shares a room with a car dealer Colin Cox.


We are introduced to the other patients, ex servicemen, a university graduate, an aristocrat and a mysterious German woman and they are all at different stages of the illness, some are chronic and unlikely to recover despite the treatment and others respond well and will eventually leave but they all seem to stay at least a year maybe longer. The sanatorium is run by Dr Limb who instills in the patients that they have to learn to be patient. No one is forced to stay, it's not a prison and although they initially fight against it and want to go home, Lenny and Miriam eventually become accepting of their situation and as Lenny puts it 'the fight seems to go out of him'.

All patients are waiting for the new drug streptomycin to arrive which they had heard would cure them and until that comes they pass their time as best they can.


I almost didn't finish this book because it was quite depressing in the early chapters with graphic descriptions of treatments such as collapsing lungs and excruciating needle procedures that quite frankly I'd rather not know about. It didn't really seem to get going until chapter 21 and the arrival of Arthur Persky an American seaman with a big personality and big ideas to liven the place up.


There were some interesting characters in this novel, all with stories of their own and it was easy to like them. I loved the two main characters, Lenny with his swagger, sharp clothes and laid back attitude and Linda Grant showed how the sanatorium changed him and perhaps it would have been for good without the arrival of Persky. Loved Miriam, her feistiness, love of fashion, movie stars and love of life and how Persky being American seemed to epitomise all her hopes and dreams.


This was well written, both sad and at times deeply moving. When Persky arrives the pace picks up and things start to 'happen' which made me continue to read as I wanted to know how it panned out. The story spans decades so we find out what happens to the characters, if they survived, their lives after this experience so it was nice to round it off like that. There are some tragedies that happen which are truly horrible, decisions taken out of love that go badly wrong and change the lives of some of the characters forever.


This is a novel that I think you have to take your time with and in the words of Dr Limb 'be patient' but if you persevere then I am sure you will enjoy the journey.


I give this 4 stars because the pace was just too slow for me at the start.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had such a great set-up, but it didn't really deliver for me. The opening was terrific; Grant's writing is so vivid and sharp in the first few chapters. And I thought that the plot line was really promising, too: tuberculosis in a post-war sanatorium, with NHS sponsored Londoners mixing in with the upper, monied classes. I just couldn't emotionally connect with any of the characters, though, despite Grant's gifts at characterisation. Even more disappointingly, the plot kept losing momentum. A great deal of descriptive detail was given to the somnolent state of the long-term 'Glendo' parents, and I felt like a little of that passivity and lassitude starting affecting me as well. It was interesting to find out what happened to some of the main characters - post-cure, as the wonder drugs of antibiotics changes the fate of some TB victims - but it felt kind of tacked-on to the rest of the story. A somewhat enjoyable and interesting read, but I just don't think it will stick with me.

[4cats · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in the late 40's this novel deals with a brother and sister who find them selves sent off to a TB sanatorium. Once there they forge relationships with other patients of different classes. This is novel which deals with the period just after the formation of the NHS and the introduction of Streptomycin in the treatment of TB. Grant researched the period and spoke to people who experienced life within a sanatorium. However, the novel she has written is I personally feel it is an unbalanced view of life in the sanatorium. Firstly, the poor and working class had access to sanatoriums prior to the formation of the NHS, the treatments offerred by the sanatoriums were all that were available until the introduction of Streptomycin, and though the treatments sound barbaric clearly given the choice of life or death you would follow the treatment regime (remember this was a period where people died from Measles, Polio and Diptheria, to name but a few). The suggestion of staff been there for all of the wrong reasons (themselves dealing with the disease for example) is incorrect as many thousands of doctors and nurses risked their own lives in dealing with what was an incurable disease. The portrayal of the Children's ward is also used as a devise to show an uncaring society, separating families and the lack of love/care of the children. Again, the children could be infectious and so families had to be separated to protect the rest of the family (this was a killer disease), children would be nursed as adults and one of the main treatment options was bedrest. Finally, Streptomycin, they had to make sure that it was safe, you would not use an untested treatment on a patient, people were desperate but they had to make sure it was safe. A good but for me an unbalanced novel.

[Anna Baillie-Karas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful writing, sympathetic characters sent to a sanatorium w TB and an interesting moment in history 1949-51, I wanted to love it but this didn't grab me.

Well-crafted, I liked brash Lenny & Miriam in London but the parts w bored, ill sanatorium patients dragged & I never got attached to the various characters (although Persky the American was fun).

Beautiful craftsmanship, each sentence honed and polished, thoughtfully written, intelligent and (I'm assuming) historically accurate. There is much wisdom here but it's put as the characters thinking, but I didn't believe they would have such sage thoughts. Eg Hannah the German ('Germany had an innate dislike of chaos and untidiness' ) reflects that "in the spirit of the British there was, she felt, a kind of human glitch, the system could handle a sense of humour ..."

The characters read books in the sanatorium and this too seemed a little earnest and unrealistic to me. (It's probably in fact what happened, but I think having characters interpret famous novels risks looking like the author showing off what they've read). To be fair, their take on Kafka's Metamorphisis and its parallels to their situation & the Jews (waking up one day and being in a body that might as well he an insect) was interesting, I just found it a little clunky.

The sanatorium part ends and soon after that I thought the story came to a natural end, without a neat resolution but the tension in the story (who survives) is answered. But then there is a long tail as story goes on for 40 odd pages, following the surviving characters into old age, which I didn't need. Perhaps it's 'completing the circle' or to satisfy the readers' curiosity - but i thought it weakened the novel.

I so wanted to like it more! 😬

[Linda Semple · Rating 5 out of 5]

On my (virtual) shelf called 'Great London Novels' Linda Grant is beginning to command considerable space. It helps that her characters are so eminently real, recognisably people that I met in my childhood - or, more likely, heard my mother describing. The London of Commercial Road sweatshops, Blooms, Aldgate East station, a nod to Cable Street, all of this appears crisply drawn - if rightly swathed in smog - from her pen in this and her previous books.
Only 60-odd years ago, the world of those who developed TB before widespread antibiotic treatment is one that my (& Linda Grant's) generation just missed. The lucky children of the birth of the NHS - which event plays an important plotting role in this book - we may have had tangential reminders of that time: my resistance to TB due to my mother's time spent in a similar place to the sanatorium in which most of the action of this takes place.
And what a great idea for a setting. Like a Golden Age crime novel, we meet a closed community of individuals across class, age and political barriers. How they interact, their personal struggles with life and disease, and their ultimate salvation - or not - is set out with humour, pathos and an unerring ear for language.
As you would expect from the author, clothes, make up and the ephemeral things that made the characters who they were are lovingly described but with a delicate touch that never overwhelms. If this book came with scent attached, it would be your mother' handbag, Brylcreem, Vicks and the underlying whiff of illness.

Thanks to NetGalley and Virago for proof copy

[Elske · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF after about 80 pages

[Joslyn Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review published: https://chronicbibliophilia.wordpress...

Linda Grant, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel “When I Lived in Modern Times”, is once again among those nominated for this esteemed prize, this time for her 2016 novel “The Dark Circle.” “The Dark Circle” tells the story of twins Lenny and Miriam, 19-year-olds who are inseparably, perhaps disturbingly, close. Lenny and Miriam are just beginning to find their way in the world of adults in post-WWII London. The two are scrappy, feisty, and full of life, fiercely devoted to one another and hopeful for their futures.

“[Lenny] only knew people who carried sacks of anxiety and neuroses and cynicism on their backs. Miriam was an outgoing extrovert but she still regarded the world as a place that needed to be tackled like a prize-fighter with two fists raised.”

Still living at home – and in fact sharing a room – the twins are under the heavy-handed, not always legitimate, influence and protection of their Uncle Manny, who feels the need to compensate for their parents.

“[Their] poor dad had done nothing for [them] except die before he could do much damage toiling over his religious books night and day in his junk shop in Stepney, and [their] mother was neither use nor ornament.”

When both Lenny and Miriam are diagnosed with tuberculosis, it is Uncle Manny who arranges for them to go to a countryside sanatorium for “the rest cure”, where they are instructed to surrender and be patient – no small task to these youngsters eager for life and adventure.

“Lenny’s main emotion since he’d been at the sanatorium was extreme boredom. Fear had subsided a while ago after the rough stabbing at his chest and the collapse of his lung. The tedium of days had numbed any sense of terror.”

In the ways of some isolated, manufactured collectives, the patients at the sanatorium form an odd community. Despite coming from extremely different circumstances and with little in common in the outside the world, they form deep connections to one another. Their time in the sanatorium – the months and even years of isolation and under-stimulation which make up the the majority of the book – marks them in an indelible way. They form friendships and loyalties that will span their lifetimes.

In a great sense, “The Dark Circle” is about extreme boredom, about extreme circumstances, and about the way these two forces can change one’s life forever. The characters are quixotic and charming, if not totally believable or fully formed. The story itself is fine and goes along fairly compellingly, but it has no real hook nor intrigue to keep a reader fully engaged. The final part of the book, in particular, is rather paltry. All of the story lines are tied up a little too neatly, making the ending shallow and cloying and the novel as a whole disappointing and forgettable. While there is nothing particularly wrong with the book, there is nothing outstanding, either, that merits its place among such an elite selection of extraordinary fiction.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actually, it got quite good sometime after page 150. But I wanted to give up so many times before that that I can’t give it more than two stars. I’m really quite surprised I finished it.

The choice of tense was unusual and distracting (but ok, I could cope with that). The language she had some of the characters saying was unbelievable (I have never, ever in my life described bacon rind being “like white marble” and I consider myself quite expressive - authors talk like that, not real people!). I found the beginning so boring that I couldn’t understand the point of reading about such a niche subject - the boredom of the characters was simply boring and didn’t stir any passion or concern for them. However, once talk of a cure became a reality, and there was more focus on the life of the characters outside of the sanatorium (either in their past, present or future), things became much more… interesting? Too strong. But enough to keep me reading. My dad had always had a sort of paranoia about TB so it was actually quite interesting for me to learn about the disease and just what a miserable prognosis you had if diagnosed. Clearly, the “treatments” they were offered were awful, and it touched on some interesting themes. All in all, I think this could have been a fair read had the beginning been stronger with more to invest you in the characters. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Also, anyone else out there wanted to know more about lady anne? Or what happened to Nigel and how he turned out? So many unfinished characters!

[Lora · Rating 2 out of 5]

Teenage twins from post-WW2 London are sent to the Kent countryside for a TB cure.

This is the first book I've read of this author who is an award winning novelist, & altho this isn't her first book, I wouldn't read another. The narrative is so clumsy, I was constantly being jolted out of the story & smacked in the face w/the fact that someone was making the whole thing up. We have a sex scene stopped so the author can describe the room where the act takes place. A brother describes his sister's hips to the disconcerted reader who wonders now what exactly goes on between the sibs, but it turns out to be nothing. Someone looking across the room at a woman can see that her necklace is fastened in the back by a diamond clasp. An uneducated working class patient uses anatomy terms that have nothing to do with his condition. One of the London sibs comes across a field of blue flowers he's never seen before, yet suddenly knows the name of them, only to later be told their name by someone else & be surprised at the name.

The book reads like something I'd expect from a precocious secondary student, not someone of Ms Grant's reputation. Perhaps something to read on a long trip or beside a pool on holiday, but not a serious literary contender by any means.

[Brittany (whatbritreads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars for this book, I didn't particularly like it but I didn't dislike it either. After reading it I feel completely neutral. It was written really nicely and I was enjoying the plot line, the only main problems I had were with the ending and the constant shift in character perspectives between chapters without warning which made it kind of confusing to follow at points.

It was loosely based on true events, which I found interesting as I didn't know much about TB or the history of TB healthcare before picking this up. Though it was very slow paced, I still managed to get through it in less that 24 hours. The last 110 pages felt very rushed, and not feeling attached to any of the characters I kind of didn't care what happened to them. The minor characters were the most interesting to me and their stories touched me more.

A nice change to the historical fiction I usually read, but not really anything exceptional.