Review of The Ballroom by Anna Hope

The Ballroom is set in 1911 in Sharston Asylum on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. The story is told by three characters: Ella, a young girl who has been sent to the asylum for a momentary act of defiance in the factory where she works: John from Ireland suffers from “melancholia” because of a tragic loss; and Charles, a mediocre doctor in the asylum who espouses the new practice of eugenics.

In the early 1900s (and probably before) trifling acts could send people to asylums. In Ella’s case, she has worked from childhood in a factory. One day she throws a rock at a high up window so she can have some air and see the sky and, for that, is considered worthy of incarceration in an asylum. John’s wife and baby have died and he is frozen with grief. Charles has been a student at medical school at the behest of his controlling father, but he would rather be playing his violin. He is hired to organize an orchestra which plays at the Friday night dances for the inmates in the ballroom. The dance participants are by selection so they must behave in order to be allowed to attend.

The book is set at the end of an era where the Irish were considered to be less than human, factories were almost Dickensian in their attitudes towards their workers, the practice of eugenics was considered to be a sensible way of weeding out the less fortunate, homosexuality was not acknowledged (Charles certainly shows hints of it, but never admits it). People who refuse to eat are force fed, which is torture for them. There are hints that a war is coming, which will bring many changes to society.

I enjoyed this book although I often found myself angry at the injustices perpetrated on Ella, John and Clem, a young friend of Ella’s who is treated abominably by her family and the asylum. The superior attitudes of the English towards the Irish is horrifying and the conditions in which they lived and worked are appalling.

The author’s first book, Wake, was set in the 1920s and followed the lives of three women whose futures were affected by their losses in World War I.

In an afterward, the author talks about her great-great-grandfather, an Irishman who was a patient in a similar asylum in 1909, the inspiration for the book. It would be interesting to hear her talk about the effect this might have had on her family and the research process.

 Reviewed by Hilary Munro