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    The Ballroom: A Novel
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    The Ballroom: A Novel
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    The Ballroom: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Ballroom: A Novel

    Written by Anna Hope

    Narrated by Daniel Weyman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A searing novel of forbidden love on the Yorkshire moors-"a British version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (The Times U.K.)-from the author of the critically acclaimed debut Wake

    England, 1911. At Sharston Asylum, men and women are separated by thick walls and barred windows. But on Friday nights, they are allowed to mingle in the asylum's magnificent ballroom. From its balconies and vaulted ceilings to its stained glass, the ballroom is a sanctuary. Onstage, the orchestra plays Strauss and Debussy while the patients twirl across the gleaming dance floor.

    Amid this heady ambience, John Mulligan and Ella Fay first meet. John is a sure-footed dancer with a clouded, secretive face; Ella is as skittish as a colt, with her knobby knees and flushed cheeks. Despite their grim circumstances, the unlikely pair strikes up a tenuous courtship. During the week, he writes letters smuggled to her in secret, unaware that Ella cannot read. She enlists a friend to read them aloud and gains resolve from the force of John's words, each sentence a stirring incantation. And, of course, there's always the promise of the ballroom.

    Then one of them receives an unexpected opportunity to leave Sharston for good. As Anna Hope's powerful, bittersweet novel unfolds, John and Ella face an agonizing dilemma: whether to cling to familiar comforts or to confront a new world-living apart, yet forever changed.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781524721503
    Unavailable
    The Ballroom: A Novel
    Author

    Anna Hope

    Anna Hope studied English at Oxford, attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and then received an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London. Her first novel, Wake, was a finalist for the National Book Awards (UK) and the Historical Writers’ Association’s Debut Crown Award. She lives in London, UK.

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    Reviews for The Ballroom

    4/5

    47 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Ballroom by Anna Hope was inspired by an ancestor who had been admitted to an asylum in the early 1900s and eventually died there. She did research about an asylum in England on the edge of the Yorkshire moors and between those two things, she created this story. This is a beautifully written book with incredibly believable characters. The more historical fiction I read, the more I think that our history is nothing but dark, horrifying events, that hopefully we learn from. This novel touches on the topic of Eugenics and how many countries, England being one of them, pondered the legalities of forced sterilization of people having genetic defects or undesirable traits. It also deals with the many people who were institutionalized for various reasons that should not have been. The time is 1911 and the asylum was beautifully built, relatively self-sufficient and had an exquisite ballroom which was seldom used.

      The story is told from the perspective of three characters. Ella Fay was a young woman who had been admitted after breaking a window in the factory she worked in. Working from morning to night, she just wanted to see the sun. She was admitted to Shaston for “hysteria”, a common one used for women, anything out of the ordinary that your husband/father or employer thought was inappropriate. John Mulligan was an Irish man who had suffered the loss of his family. He ended up in a workhouse, then Sharston asylum because there was no other place for the city to put him. He was labelled with various things, one being laziness or intemperance. He was a good worker and was used to dig mass graves, work in the fields etc. Charles Fuller was a doctor who started off as a character that I very much liked. He tried to use music to get the patients to feel better. He started dances where the males and females actually came together instead of the segregation they live in. He was getting positive results until a trip to London. This is where the Eugenics comes in. It is very scary to read about what the beliefs were at that time. John and Ella fall meet at the dances, communicate via notes and fall in love. One night they manage to sneak out and spend the time together. These characters are so well written that you feel that you know them, are there with them and going through the same things they are experiencing. The secondary characters are just as well written. You will read details about the atrocities and lack of kindness common in asylums. You meet patients and your heart breaks for them. The romance in the story is tender yet heartfelt and the ending was amazing. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, even with a little romance thrown in. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.
    • 4/5
      Set in 1911 in Sharston Asylum, West Yorkshire (based on the real-life Menston Asylum), this powerful, poignant story is told through three narrative voices. Ella, a young woman whose only “crime” had been to break a window at the mill where she worked in order to see the sky – an expression of her despair at the dreadful working conditions, as well as the abuse she experienced at home. John, an Irishman who, following the death of his young daughter and the breakdown of his marriage, had become depressed and was eventually admitted to the asylum. Charles, the asylum’s reluctant doctor, would rather be a musician but feels a need to prove himself to his father by achieving something important. Life in the asylum is harsh and the men and women are strictly segregated, except for two hours every Friday night when they are allowed to socialise in the beautiful ballroom, listen to music and dance. However, only some of the residents are chosen and they all know that any infraction of the rules will lead the withdrawal of the privilege. John feels an immediate attraction to Ella and writes her a letter but as she cannot read, her friend Clem, an avid reader, reads them to her and then writes a letter back for her. This exchange of letters forges an ever-closer relationship between the couple, offering them possibility of love and romance in the face of the loneliness and madness of their surroundings. There were times when I found this a really difficult story to read because it so clearly evoked the horrors of what life was like for those deemed “unfit” for society in the early days of the twentieth century, a time when eugenics was gaining popularity as a means by which to “breed-out” the “dregs” of society – the violent, the feeble-minded, the addicts etc. I had known that Churchill had become convinced of the desirability of pursuing a programme of enforced sterilisation and had attempted to force through legislation to achieve this. However, it felt very uncomfortable to be reminded of how close this barbaric “solution” came to being enshrined in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act, which legislated instead the need for enforced segregation, rather than sterilisation, to prevent reproduction. Each of the characters felt convincing and I soon found myself caught up in the developing relationship between Ella and John, hoping for a good outcome for them but always fearing that the circumstances they found themselves in would stop them getting together. I loved that Ella found a friend in Clem, an emotionally fragile young woman, but an avid reader who found refuge in the books her affluent family kept her supplied with. What happened to her as the story progressed was one of the most disturbing aspects of this already deeply-disturbing story. However, the pivotal character in all their lives was Charles, a man who at first appeared, with his belief in the healing qualities of music, to care for the inmates. However, as his own troubled, repressed feelings begin to surface, his behaviour towards them becomes increasingly vengeful, sadistic and destructive. The author used her great-great-grandfather experiences as an inmate at Menston Asylum to create a well-written but disturbing, haunting and unforgettable story.
    • 4/5
      Well, I was not expecting that! From the cover - by which I realise you should never judge the book - I had this pegged as one of those wishy-washy historical novels set around the First World War, which it sort of is, but the local connection blew me away. From the first description of the asylum, which is the setting of the story, I thought, 'I know that building!' (Not personally, I hasten to add.) I work in an archives office in West Yorkshire, and instantly recognised High Royds, or the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, to give the former hospital a charming title. Also from Mark Davies' website, which I used to check that I was right - and yep, there are the black daisies in the entrance hall.Anyway, location aside, the story is based - loosely - on the author's grandfather, an Irishman who was an inmate at High Royds. He died in his 50s, but his character in the book, John Mulligan, fights against his incarceration, and also the insidious attentions of rogue doctor Charles Fuller, who believes in eugenics and should probably be locked up instead of his patients. In fact, the doctor, and the sudden darkening of his personality and outlook, is the only character who didn't really work for me - he was fairly creepy to begin with, but then turned into a cackling caricature, hell bent on eradicating his patients to escape his own inner demons. John and Ella were sympathetic enough, however, and I wanted to read more about poor Clem.A superbly atmospheric setting, local links, beautiful writing, well paced - most definitely recommended, even for readers who can't identify the asylum based on the pattern of the tiles!
    • 4/5
      This has been a difficult review in the sense that I, initially, couldn't pinpoint what it was that didn't feel right for me. Up to the middle, I knew I liked it enough to continue reading, my overall impression was positive, but it wasn't fulfilling my expectations.In a certain degree, I am still conflicted and divided over a few parts of the novel. And then, something happened and the book started coming to life.

      I started The Ballroom by Anna Hope with enthusiasm. Stories that are set in asylums, dealing with mental illness have always fascinated me. There is something profound, humbling even, in diving right into the deepest recesses of the human brain and witness how much difference can a single stimulus make, however slight or unimportant it may seem. Moreover, novels that are set in asylums are full of characters that have no reason to be there, other than the prejudices and norms on which the societies of the past were built. Whoever dares to walk away from conformities is branded a ''lunatic'', deemed a danger to the ''good people''.

      Here, we have an interesting premise. In the asylum of our story, in Yorkshire, there is a special hall called The Ballroom. The patients,men and women, who are well-behaved are rewarded when they are chosen to take part in the waltz-evenings, under the sound of Dr. Fuller's piano.The characters in focus are four. Ella, a young woman who broke a window in her workplace, John Mulligan from Ireland, who is harbouring family secrets, Clem, a young upper-class girl and Dr. Fuller who is the character that drived the story forward.

      There is a great risk of spoilers with The Ballroom. What I can safely say is that I found the plot of eugenics really interesting,if terrifying. The particular notion isn't something new. A number of scientists serving their own distorted ideas of pure societies, some distinguished public figures of the time, and a handful of totalitarian states desired to bring it to action. There are voices - however weak - still supporting it today, which fills me with horror over the future of mankind, but this is a discussion for another time.

      The characters are wel-drawn. Ella is sensible, sensitive and with tremendous resources of inner strength, as is John. He has the characteristics of a tragic figure, his sense of freedom being his driving force and in my opinion, he is the one the reader can immediately connect with. Clem was an unsympathetic, irritating character in my eyes. And Dr. Fuller? There's so much storm inside him, so much darkness and illusions, so many secrets. What starts as a force of good becomes the most evil presence in the narration. When his character comes into focus,though, the tides change and the novel finds its pace, becoming a whirlwind of events.

      What I enjoyed was the fact that the love plot of The Ballroom was well-written and given in a poetic, but not melodramatic way. Did I find it realistic? No. I didn't even find it plausible, but sometimes we must part with our reservations and appeciate a story for it sheer beauty. The writing is balanced, if a little slow. It took me some time to connect with the characters and the heart of the narration. The dialogue is realistic, but at the same time, it retains a certain dream-like quality. I appreciated the fact that Anna Hope didn't spend time describing other patients' stories, it would be unecessary as the novel already has its share of darkness as it is.

      So, I could actually rate The Ballroom with 3.5 stars in order to be absolutely honest. However, the way the story is developed and the structure of the characters cannot but carry you with them. I read the last page having feelings that were a mix of sadness and frustration rather than hope. But I know that most of the ''real'' life stories end in such a way, instead of a ''happily-ever- after''...
    • 4/5
      I found this book to be utterly beautiful. It had elegant wording and a captivating romance that made my heart race. While the story was unconventional, the words had a way of wrapping around me and pulling me beneath the surface. I found myself living in the asylum next to the crazies just waiting for a moment of freedom.

      The story is about being trapped in a cage where you don't belong. It's about the daily struggles of not being able to live a normal life and to feel crazy even when you aren't. It really brought focus to how situations affect your mental stability. Ella is trapped inside without the sun on her skin and John tries to bring the outdoors to her through intricate letters. It was quite beautiful to watch it all unfold and also quite heartbreaking to see it end.

      It was raw and hard to read at times, but the overall I found it to be a well written book with a hard emotional punch. My only complaint would be Charles' parts ... for me they really brought the pace of the story down. I found him to be extremely boring. I understand his part in the story, but for me, he was not needed... All in all I would highly recommend this one to all readers!
    • 4/5
      I really liked this one....much more than I expected to. Yes, it's historical fiction; yes, it's a love story...but it's so much more and it's also beautifully written. Ella Fay is sent to an asylum because she broke a window in the factory where she works. John Mulligan is another patient there who also seems to have little, if any, true mental illness. He is mourning the death of his infant daughter and subsequent break-up of his marriage. They meet at a weekly ballroom dance, where male and female patients are brought together as a form of music therapy, led by Dr. Charles Fuller. Dr. Fuller is pioneering this kind of therapy, but also intrigued by eugenics and struggling against his homosexuality.So, this book explores the treatment of the mentally ill, a topic that continues to be of interest today even though the specifics of the debate has changed. It also looks at societal expectations in terms of behaviour. And it's a fascinating story of how two people meet and fall in love.
    • 5/5
      Very impressive and rather difficult to set down. A must read for fans of historical fiction.
    • 4/5
      1911, Sharston Manor, an asylum form the mentally ill and feeble minded, located at the edge of the Yorkshire moors. A beautiful looking place that even contains a gorgeous ballroom. What goes on inside though doesn't match the beauty of the buildings appearance. Ella will find herself committed there after she breaks a window at the place she has worked since she was a young girl, she wanted only to see the sky. John will be brought there from the workhouses.Beautiful prose, magnificent rendering of setting, one can exactly see what it was like for these poor unfortunates. The atmosphere, yearning, sadness, melancholy and brief glimpses of friendship, love and joy, her words make is feel these emotions. Clem, Ella, John and the doctor Charles, a sexually conflicted man, who changes throughout this story and not for the better. Memorable characters all. The hubris of the people in power who thought they had the right to decide who should be able to bear or father children. Eugenics, a horrible time in history, an important part of this story.This story made me angry but also broke my heart. It is loosely based on an ancestor of the authors though as she explains in her afterword, his story wasn't quite the same. This hospital under a different name actually did exist for many years. The treatment for the mentally ill has come a long way but still has a long way to go. ARC from Netgalley.
    • 5/5
      The Ballroom is a beautifully told story of heartache, love, healing, and what happens when a few people have the power to decide the fates of others. Anna Hope's writing has a poetic, literary feel. She paints the scenes so that we watch them as they unfold. I could see this asylum in the middle of the countryside, and I could almost smell the closed, rank air of the wards. The author captures the very essence of life in the early 1900s.The story is told through three separate viewpoints. We have Ella, who is a young woman locked away for the crime of expressing her frustration with being treated as less than human. We have John, who is locked in the kind of despair that men are not allowed to express. And we have Charles, one of the doctors deciding the fate of others, who has, perhaps, more psychological damage than those he accuses of being mentally ill.This is a melancholy, thoughtful story with incredible depth. It's complex without being weighed down by details. I was totally captivated by the setting and the characters.
    • 5/5
      This was just a beautiful, deeply poignant piece of literature.I don't read historical fiction. It's just not my thing. But when I saw some friends' glowing reviews for this and heard about the setting being an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, I had to give this a go.The writing was stunning. I could literally see, smell, and hear it all.Told from three alternating perspectives, this is mainly the story of Ella and John, who, in the summer heatwave of 1911, are patients in Sharston Asylum. John, an Irishman, is no stranger to grief and has been labeled as melancholic. Ella has been given the for women at those times widespread diagnosis of hysteria. She broke a window in the dim and stale spinning mill where she was working. Ella and John are both under the care of Charles, a young doctor and keen musician. On Fridays, the normally segregated male and female patients are allowed to mingle for a dance in the imposing ballroom. A kind of fledgling music therapy idea.While the budding relationship between Ella and John was lovely to follow, it was Charles' evolution that made this into a riveting read for me. Seen as failing by his controlling father and struggling with his own repressed feelings, Charles starts to believe he can make a name for himself by supporting Eugenics research and the idea of forced sterilization for the "feeble-minded". The plotline involving Clem, a "private" patient and well-educated woman who loves books and whom Ella befriends, was also deeply moving.Anna Hope based this fictional story on the West Riding of Yorkshire Menston Asylum where her great-great-grandfather was a patient from 1909 until his death in 1918, and her extensive historical research becomes apparent when you read this dark and unsettling but beautifully written story. The epilogue made me shed a tear or two. 4.5 stars.Thanks to Random House Publishing Group for my ARC via NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      The Ballroom by Anna Hope is a 2016 McClelland & Stewart publication. I really had no idea what to expect when I started this book. The synopsis was intriguing, but I couldn’t tell if this book was a romance or pure historical fiction. I suppose it’s a little bit of both, but I never could have guessed at the direction this book would take. In 1911 Ella sealed her fate by committing the oh so heinous crime of breaking a window at the factory she worked as a spinner. She only wanted a glimpse of the outdoors, but was quickly diagnosed as hysterical and sent to Sharston Asylum. If the patients are well behaved they are allowed to visit the ballroom, where they will meet the men who are housed in a separate location of the asylum, where they can hear music and dance. This is where Ella meets John and a correspondence develops between them. But, Ella is under the watchful eye of her doctor, Charles Fuller, who is escaping his own private hell, as well as becoming interested in Eugenics.Once the story got rolling the atmosphere swings from harrowing, to a sweet romance, to suspenseful, to horrifying, and then finally finds a peace of sorts by the end of the novel.If you read this book, I can promise you, it will stick with you a long, long, long time. I have caught myself, in quiet moments, thinking about these characters, this unforgettably haunting story, that cast an unusually heavy spell over me. The asylum is a very unlikely place for a couple to meet and fall in love, but, despite the heaviness and gloom, this is exactly what happens. It is also the setting for the development of a deep bond of friendship, between Ella and Clem, a woman who helps Ella cope with being locked away in such a bleak, oppressive, and terrifying place. The atmosphere, and utter horror the patients, are subjected to, is a powerful eye opener, especially when the topic of Eugenics is raised. The power over the residents or ‘patients’ in the asylum in this era of time is astounding and made my skin crawl. The story is told from John, Charles, and Ella’s first person perspectives, each chronicling their desires, hopes, goals, deep thoughts and feelings. Naturally, the story rolls on into a virtual nightmare, that is absolutely harrowing as, ironically, the good doctor descends into an insane madness of his own, which made my stomach roil, as a truly terrifying sense of foreboding hung thick in the air. This story will give your emotions a real workout, will educate you, horrify you, and break your heart, but above all, will tell a tender, bittersweet and poignant love story, which is the part I’ve locked away in my heart and memory. If you close the book with dry eyes, you are a much stronger person than I.
    • 5/5
      I got lost in this book early on – lost in a good way. The blossoming relationship of John and Ella, two patients in the Sharston Asylum, and the fire that burned in these characters pulled me in.Descriptions of time, place and feelings were expertly done and made my senses come alive such as in this following example: “The dusk came, and the moon rose, golden, above the buildings ahead. Different shapes filled the sky – the whirling dance of bats – and when the edges of things were soft and the shadows began to merge he watched the path. He fingered the stalks in his pocket, his eyes on the trampled grass. The thought of her was like touching something hot.” There were many wonderful passages such as this within the bleak walls and grounds of the asylum from which the bulk of this story is told.But who are the insane ones, the patients of the asylum or is it Dr. Charles Fuller, Medical Officer. Charles' perspective is as interesting as Ella and John’s, his obsessiveness and pathetic character spiraling downward repel yet captivate.