Join us

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Newsletter

Joan London

The Golden Age

Cover: The Golden Age - Joan London

Joan London

The Golden Age

2016, pp. 208, e-Book
ISBN: 9781609453268
Region: Australia
Paper edition Paper edition Paper edition
$ 9.99
READ NOW READ NOW READ NOW

The book

The Golden Age is an immensely satisfying and generous-hearted story about displacement, recovery, resilience, and love.

Thirteen-year-old Frank Gold’s family has escaped from Hungary and the perils of World War II to the safety of Australia, but not long after their arrival Frank is diagnosed with polio. He is sent to a sprawling children’s hospital called The Golden Age, where he meets Elsa, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, a girl who radiates pure light. Frank and Elsa fall in love, fueling one another’s rehabilitation, facing the perils of polio and adolescence hand in hand, and scandalizing the prudish staff of The Golden Age.

Meanwhile, Frank and Elsa’s parents must cope with their changing realities. Elsa’s mother Margaret, who has given up everything to be a perfect mother, must reconcile her hopes and dreams with her daughter’s sickness. Frank’s parents, transplants to Australia from a war-torn Europe, are isolated newcomers in a country that they do not love and that does not seem to love them. Frank’s mother Ida, a renowned pianist in Hungary, refuses to allow the western deserts of Australia to become her home. But her husband, Meyer, slowly begins to free himself from the past and integrate into a new society.

With tenderness and humor, The Golden Age tells a deeply moving story about illness and recovery. It is a book about learning to navigate the unfamiliar, about embracing music, poetry, death, and, most importantly, life.

Awards: 2015 Patrick White Literary Award, 2015 Kibble Literary Award, Queensland Premier's Award for Fiction, New South Wales Premier's People's Choice Award

The author

Joan London
Joan London is a bookseller and author living in Perth. She is the author of two short story collections, Sister Ships, which won The Age Book of the Year award, and Letter to Constantine, which won the Steele Rudd Award as well as the West Australian Premier's Award for Fiction, and three novels, Gilgamesh, The Good Parents, and The Golden Age.

Press

From the same country

  • Cover: Friends and Dark Shapes - Kavita Bedford

    Kavita Bedford

    Friends and Dark Shapes

    2021, pp. 192, $ 17.00
    Shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards A group of housemates in Sydney’s inner city contend with gentrification, divisive politics,...
  • Cover: No More Boats - Felicity Castagna

    Felicity Castagna

    No More Boats

    2019, pp. 250, $ 17.00
    A finalist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2018, No More Boats is not only a riveting story of a modern family it directly addresses...
  • Cover: City of Crows - Chris Womersley

    Chris Womersley

    City of Crows

    2018, pp. 352, $ 17.00
    "A gothic masterpiece."— Better Read Than Dead Set in seventeenth-century France—a country in the thrall of dark magic, its social fabric...
  • Cover: The Passage of Love - Alex Miller

    Alex Miller

    The Passage of Love

    2018, pp. 496, $ 19.00
    The Passage of Love is a moving novel from one of Australia’s most beloved authors, two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Award, Alex Miller.
  • Cover: To Name Those Lost - Rohan Wilson

    Rohan Wilson

    To Name Those Lost

    2017, pp. 240, $ 17.00
    A powerful page-turner about a father and son in search of each other in a lawless age and a violent land, To Name Those Lost is a tale of guilt,...
  • Cover: The Natural Way of Things - Charlotte Wood

    Charlotte Wood

    The Natural Way of Things

    2016, pp. 208, $ 17.00
    The Natural Way of Things is at once lucid and illusory, a brilliantly plotted novel of ideas that reminds us of mankind's own vast contradictions—the...

More suggestions

  • Cover: The Ghosts of Rome - Joseph O’Connor

    Joseph O’Connor

    The Ghosts of Rome

    2025, pp. 400, $ 28.00
    In the final months of World War II, a clandestine group known as The Choir smuggles thousands of escapees out of Nazi-occupied Rome via a secret...
  • Cover: The Bishop’s Villa - Sacha Naspini

    Sacha Naspini

    The Bishop’s Villa

    2024, pp. 192, $ 28.00
    From the best-selling author of Nives, a story of love, redemption, and resistance set in Italy during WWII
  • Cover: Paradises Lost - Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

    Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

    Paradises Lost

    2024, pp. 480, $ 30.00
    The beginning of a unique adventure, the tremendous challenge of recounting the history of humanity.
  • Cover: The Throne - Franco Bernini

    Franco Bernini

    The Throne

    2024, pp. 384, $ 30.00
    This meticulously researched and brilliantly told historical novel, the first of a planned trilogy, recounts the enigmatic life of Niccolò Machiavelli,...
  • Cover: The Postcard - Anne Berest

    Anne Berest

    The Postcard

    2024, pp. 480, $ 18.95
    Brilliantly told, Anne Berest’s luminous, moving, and unforgettable new book The Postcard is the most acclaimed and beloved French novel in...
  • Cover: My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor

    Joseph O’Connor

    My Father’s House

    2024, pp. 368, $ 18.95
    From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Star of the Sea and winner of the 2021 Irish Book Awards Book of the Year for Shadowplay, comes...

Join Our Newsletter and receive a FREE eBook!

Stay updated on Europa’s forthcoming releases, author tours and major news.

Are you a bookseller? Click here!

Are you a librarian? Click here!

X