![]() The way that the relationships between Evvy and her roommates grow and develop is beautifully handled with almost no excess words.īreathing Room is not an easy book. Because so much of what Evvy and the other girls at Loon Lake have to endure is unbearably banal - lying motionless in bed, not being allowed to talk, having no distractions at all from the white walls and the thoughts in one's head - even the slightest change is exciting and meaningful. The novel infuses small scenes and brief moments with pathos and significance. Separated from her (uninfected) twin brother and the rest of her family, struggling for her health, and subject to the mind-numbing tedium of the Loon Lake Sanatorium's daily routine, Evvy has to try and be brave in deeply dispiriting circumstances. ![]() It wasn't much of a hope - some records show that half of all patients who entered a sanatorium were dead in five years - but it was the only hope available.Īdults came seeking a cure, but children came too - children like thirteen-year-old Evvy Hoffmeister, the narrator of Breathing Room. ![]() If you came down with the disease, the best you could do was go to a sanatorium and hope that fresh air and bed rest would improve your symptoms. ![]() Until 1946, when trials with streptomycin began, there was no effective treatment for tuberculosis. ![]()
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