Breath

by TimWinton (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.25

  Bruce Pike can hear the sea at night and longs to go to the shore. When he befriends Loonie, his small town's wild boy, that dream is realized. Together, intoxicated by the treacherous power of the waves and by the immortality of youth, the two boys defy all limits and rules. Pikelet learns what it is to be extraordinary, feels exhilaration for the very first time, and -- caught up in love and friendship and an erotic current he cannot resist -- he understands the true meaning of fear. These are experiences that will far outlast his adolescence. How, then, to mask the emptiness of leaving such intensity behind? 'An absorbing, powerful and deeply beautiful novel' Observer 'A love letter to the sea and a moving coming-of-age story ...Rapturous' Sunday Telegraph 'Breath has the sensibility and reach of an epic' Scotland on Sunday 'Full of fizz and a vital poetry of sun, sand, sea and air' Independent on Sunday 'Breath has the urgent clarity of a story that needed to be told' Guardian

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.25

  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.