Reading The Golden Age felt like experiencing a piece of music, London’s writing is so beautifully balanced and euphoric.
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.

Frank Gold, 13yo refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio in Australia. At the Golden Age Polio Home in Leederville, he sees Elsa, a fellow patient, and they form a forbidden, passionate bond. The Golden Age becomes the micro-world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs- love and desire, music, death, and poetry. It is a place where children must learn they’re alone, even within their families.