Breath by Tim Winton

Tim Winton’s Breath, winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, is a story about the wildness of youth and learning to live with its passing.

When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone wrong, he knows better than his colleague, better than the kid’s parents, what happened and how. Thirty years before, that dead boy could have been him.

A relentlessly gripping and deeply moving novel about the damage you do to yourself when you’re young and think you’re immortal.

Comments

We were unanimous in our assessment of this wonderful book by Tim Winton. A vivid depiction of a beautiful and largely unspoilt area of the south-western Australian coastline is the setting for this coming of age story. At first glance this is a novel about two bored young teenage boys in a small town seeking adventure and a hero to emulate. However, their relationship with Sando and Eva, a couple of outsiders new to the town, and the underlying problems in all their lives are the basis for a much darker scenario.

The boys, Pikelet and Loonie, and Sando are all dare devil surfers entranced by the wild danger of this area of the coast. Throughout the book the fear, exhilaration and challenge of surfing in ever more dangerous conditions is ever-present as one of the death-defying activities which induce an adrenaline rush. Other far darker exploits such as auto-erotic asphixiation, Sandos power over the very impressionable boys and Pikelet’s sexual encounters with the emotionally unstable Eva, all contribute to serious problems in later life.

A book which we agreed deserves a second reading just to admire again the wisdom and depth of this wonderful Australian novelist.

Read by Dundas Readers