In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war--but in the town of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. From within their isolated community, they grapple with some of the most thrilling scientific discoveries of their time--X-ray technology, chemical and biological weapons, changing theories of atomic structure--and their limitations. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and, sometimes, secret attachments. When the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice. With The Air We Breathe , Andrea Barrett has crafted a "majestic, breathtaking, [and] thrilling" ( San Diego Union-Tribune ) novel that brilliantly illuminates the inescapable heartbreak of war.