After reading a couple of romance novels to get The Midwife out of my system, I dove back into my to-read pile and came up with The Ballroom by Anna Hope. This book has been on my to-read list since I first read a review of it in one of the journals that’s always floating around my colleague’s offices, tempting us to buy more books. I’ve long had a fascination with pre-ethics board asylums and psychology for reasons I haven’t quite fathomed yet. The Ballroom is set at one such as asylum in rural England just before the First World War. Two inmates meet at the weekly dance, not knowing that they are the object of a doctor’s research into eugenics...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.

The Ballroom is set at the beginning of the twentieth century in a huge lunatic asylum near Manchester, the centre-piece of which is a ballroom where weekly dances are attended by the normally segregated female and male patients.

At the heart of the story are four strongly-drawn characters: Ella, the factory worker committed for breaking a window, John the Irish labourer recovering from a breakdown after the collapse of his marriage, Clem an educated young woman who refuses to accept her father's choice of husband, and Charles, the second-rate doctor fascinated by the newly-popular ideas of the eugenic movement.

A  study of the abuse of power, The Ballroom examines the consequences of  poorly understood scientific thinking , in this case the extension of evolutionary theory to ideas about race, class and mental illness,  and, in particular, the ideas behind the eugenics movement.

Eugenics ultimately gave birth to the horrors of Nazism, but in its early days it was supported by influential people on the right and left of the political spectrum including, in Britain, the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill,  whom ambitious Charles hopes to impress with his plans for a programme of compulsory sterilization for the feeble-minded

Lyrical writing, a compelling emotional narrative and a nail-biting plot make for a novel that functions on a number of different levels and afterwards lingers powerfully in the reader's mind like a warning from history.

I received a copy of this book from the publishers and this is my honest opinion of the book.

Ella Fay finds herself in Sharston Asylum, locked away for a minor incident. Her first instinct is to flee, then to fight. She quickly realises that biding her time may be the best way of surviving. In time she is allowed to go to the ballroom, where a weekly dance for the inmates takes place. There she meet John. When John meets Ella she awakens something in him he thought was long since lost. It is between the austere walls of the asylum that Ella and John can heal each other.

There is no doubt that this is a beautifully written novel. There is a fluidity to the language that is almost poetic. Anna Hope eloquently evokes images of the asylum and its inhabitants, both those forcibly kept there and those that are present through choice. The beauty of the surroundings juxtaposes against the fetid dormitories and treatments rooms, designed almost to cruely mock the inmates, the views of open spaces and nature that are fleetingly grabbed through barred windows a reminder of what they are missing.

The story focusses on four main characters, John, Ella and Clem are all inmates, Charles the doctor who attends them. Chapters are alternated between John, Ella and Charles with Clem remaining a presence that brings the story of the others together. Then there is the character of Dan Riley who gives hope to John and Ella, making them realise that life can be different, if they just see themselves differently. These characters draw you into the story, are so real you can imagine them in front of you.

The novel is well researched and it shows in the writing. The treatment of those with mental illness in the early 20th Century was shockingly barbaric, as was the loose definition of mental illness. You could be interred simply for being poor and the shocking ideas behind Eugenics is also well discussed in the book.

There is melancholy and hopelessness weaved throughout the passages of this book. But there is also hope. John and Ella both find freedom from themselves when they find each other. Love awakens possibilities in them both, that they can be people they never were before, better for their time in the institution, no matter how horrendous the time spent there was. It takes a place that strips them of their dignity and rights, that made them feel worthless to realise just how much they do mean, to themselves and others.

I struggled with the first third of the book. The bleakness of the setting, the desperation and sadness of the inmates made it almost impossible to read. There were days that passed before I picked it up again. Then when I did, the pages would turn with ease and more of the story of John and Ella would be revealed.

This is not a light love story. It is heart-wrenching, anger-inducing, moving prose that is made all the more touching for the fact that it is inspired by Anna Hope’s great Grandfather. This is a beautifully written tale of love, hopelessness and how peace of mind can appear in the strangest of places.

The Ballroom is set in 1911 and tells the emotional story of a few characters and their lives inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors. The men and woman are kept apart, except for one night a week (if they’re lucky), when they all get together in the ballroom for a dance.

I found this to be a sometimes dark, but overall touching story of love and human struggle. Most of the characters were very likeable, and I did find myself becoming emotionally involved with this story. Having only a few characters to focus on, made the story easy to follow, and allowed me to truly bond with those characters.

It was very atmospheric and the whole time I was reading this book, I was very much within the walls of the asylum, experiencing the thoughts and emotions of the characters. This book left me with mixed feelings of sadness and hope.

The epilogue is also interesting, and the Author’s Note is very touching too.

I highly recommend this to those who enjoy historical fiction with believable characters, and I look forward to reading more by this author in future.

I would like to thank the publisher, Doubleday (Random House UK, Transworld Publishers) for allowing me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.