Breath

Bruce Pike, or 'Pikelet', has lived all his short life in a tiny sawmilling town from where the thundering sea can be heard at night. He longs to be down there on the beach, amidst the pounding waves, but for some reason his parents forbid him. It's only when he befriends Loonie, the local wild boy, that he finally defies them. Intoxicated by the treacherous power of the sea and by their own youthful endurance, the two boys spurn all limits and rules, and fall into the company of adult mentors whose own addictions to risk take them to places they could never have imagined.Caught up in love and friendship and an erotic current he cannot resist, Pikelet faces challenges whose effects will far outlast his adolescence. "Breath" is the story of lost youth recollected: its attractions, its compulsions, its moments of heartbreak and of madness. A young man learns what it is to be extraordinary, how to push himself, mind and body, to the limit in terrible fear and exhilaration, and how to mask the emptiness of leaving such intensity - in love and in life - behind. Told with the immediacy and grace so characteristic of Tim Winton, "Breath" is a mesmeric novel by a writer at the height of his powers.

About the Author :
Tim Winton is widely considered one of the greatest living Australian writers. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). In 2023 he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to literature as an author and novelist, to conservation, and to environmental advocacy. He lives in Western Australia.

Review :
""Breath" is a coming-of-age novel written with Tim Winton's customary tenderness and vivid sense of place and psychological truth. He manages to portray brilliantly made characters against a mythic landscape, thus creating a narrative that is gripping and breath-taking both in its vast scope and in its use of emotional detail. This is his most forceful and perfect novel to date." --Colm Toibin, author of "The Master" "Plunge into this novel and you, too, will be pulled under."--"The Miami Herald ""Stunning in the depth of its audacity . . . limitlessly beautiful prose."--"The Washington Post Book World " "Darkly exhilarating . . . a tautly gorgeous meditation on the inescapable human addiction to 'the monotony of drawing breath, ' whether you want to or not."--"The New York Times Book Review " "Both a hymn to the beauty of flying on water and a sober assessment of the costs of losing one's balance, in every sense of the word."--"The New Yorker "