The Golden Age

A deeply moving novel about resilience and youth 


Frank Gold’s Jewish-Hungarian family have fled Europe and the looming threat of Nazi Germany for the safety of Australia. Not long after their arrival, however, thirteen-year-old Frank is diagnosed with polio and is sent to a sprawling children’s hospital called the Golden Age. There he meets Elsa, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.  


Frank and Elsa’s love fuels their rehabilitation and scandalizes the prudish staff of the Golden Age. Meanwhile, their parents are coping with challenges of their own. Elsa’s mother Margaret must reconcile her hopes and dreams with her daughter’s illness; Frank’s mother Ida, a renowned pianist in Hungary, refuses to let the empty western deserts of Australia become her home, while his father Meyer slow finds a place for himself in the Perth of the early 1950s. 


A modern classic, Joan London’s The Golden Age is a moving story documenting the transition between illness and recovery, childhood and maturity, and life and death.