Golden Age

Joan London

Book cover for Golden Age
Image for variant 9798889661542
Book cover for Golden Age
Image for variant 9798889661542

Golden Age

Golden Age

Joan London

View full details

Critical Reviews

"Graciously captures young love in a quiet and beautifully sculpted story that is easily devoured in one sitting."--Library Journal


"Poetic intensity suffuses the novel . . . Resisting easy sentimentality, [it] presents polio rehabilitation as a metaphor for postwar recovery." ―The New Yorker


"Beautiful."―The Dallas Morning News


"The Golden Age is a beautiful love story that insists upon celebrating the transcendent power of poetry and art over the destructive forces of fear, despair and xenophobia."--The Dallas Morning News


"For all its focus on exile and displacement, The Golden Age is by no means an angry book. It is a quiet, elegiac story of love and renewal and liberation written in crisp prose."--Forward


"The Golden Age serenely affirms the goodness in people and the divinity of the connections between them."--Helen Elliott, The Sydney Morning Herald


"The Golden Age is London's most accomplished and keenly felt work to date...her affection for her characters may be contagious."--Geordie Williamson, The Australian


"Fearless, graceful and deeply benevolent."--Helen Garner, author of The Children's Bach


"A brilliant display of life and change: the transition between war and peace, between love and permission, between terrible paralysis of various kinds and movement."--Brenda Walker, The Monthly


"The Golden Age carries the quiet assurance of a classic, which it will most certainly become."--Tegan Bennett Daylight, Sydney Review of Books


"London's writing is at its best when bringing to life the coming-of-age story between Frank and Elsa: their hopes and fears (and those of other polio-stricken children), their resolve, and their disappointments. The setting and place are rich and detailed, and Perth feels alive."--Historical Novel Society

Publishing Information

Publisher: Europa Editions
Pub date: 2025-09-02
Length: 224 pages

The Allstora Membership

Membership Perks:

  • Save 30% on all online store purchases
  • Exclusive access to author's content
  • You pay less, but authors still earn double

Membership Terms:

First Month: $0.00
Monthly price: $5.00
  • To access membership discount simply log in and add to cart, discount applied automatically.
  • One month free trial, cancel anytime. Membership renews on the 15th of each month.