THE GOLDEN AGE, by Joan London. An Australian novelist little known in this country, London sets her story at a children’s polio hospital in Western Australia of the 1950s. There, Frank Gold — a Holocaust survivor who emigrated with his parents — falls in love with Elsa Briggs. We come to know these two young people, their families and the hospital staff in a heartfelt novel reminiscent of Colm Tóibín’s “Brooklyn.” (Europa Editions, $17 paper)
