The Ballroom by Anna Hope

A love story set in a mental asylum is sure to test the reader. Anna Hope’s novel, The Ballroom, is an intense read, conjuring up a time when asylums were a convenient place to put people who had simply fallen on hard times, were difficult to deal with or just a bit depressed. In the background, Eugenics was the talk among thinkers of the day, including a son of Charles Darwin and Winston Churchill.

The story is told through three main characters: Ella is a mill worker, working long days and living with a violent father. When she breaks a window at work just so she can see the sky, events spiral out of control and she finds herself in Sharston Asylum, with no word of when she may be let out.

John is an Irish ‘melancholic’ apparently unable to get over the death of his young daughter and falling on hard times, has been left at Sharston to recover, or not. He digs the unmarked graves for those who never leave and dreams of freedom.

Charles Fuller is a disappointment to his parents but has found a promising career as a musician and medical attendant at Sharston. Here he charms the residents with Chopin and Shubert on Mondays, and leads the band for the weekly dance in the ballroom. He is convinced that music might cure madness, and offer an alternative to the principals of Eugenics.

As the 1911 heatwave sets in, Hope creates sweltering scenes - the women stuck in airless rooms and the men labouring outside while the summer rages on. As the temperature rises, so do people’s emotions until some kind of boiling point seems inevitable. This is a moving story about love and loss, redemption and the fine line between madness and sanity. Very much recommended.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Ballroom