When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone wrong, he knows better than his partner, better than the parents, what happened and how.
Breath is a story about the wildness of youth - the lust for excitement and terror, the determination to be extraordinary, the wounds that heal and those that don't - and about learning to live with its passing.
Our last book for 2009 provided a lively discussion for our first meeting of the year. We divided into two camps over Tim Winton's Breath. We had the die-hard Winton fans who, to put it mildly, absolutely loved this book! It was brimming with Australian 'Winton' charm, superb characterisation and a wonderful sense of place ... his much loved West Australian coast.
Then we had the not so converted. This was grounded mostly in the writing style. It is true that Winton's style either works for you or not, with the latter being the case here. A few thought it just a surfing story with too much description and not enough rounding off of the main character's adult life.
His his fans strongly disagreed with these views and our discussion moved onto the other issues covered in the story; teenage recklessness and thrill-seeking, parent/child relationships, simply coming-of-age and something more sinister ... the control of young lives by dysfunctional adults. This particular issue was disturbing for some of our readers, mainly the inclusion of auto-erotic asphyxiation, but then, when has Winton ever shied away from stepping outside the boundaries?
Reagardless of its critics, Breath scored well with our group and I think it will be a contender for a 2010 favourite. All in all, a great start to a new year of reading. If you haven't taken the plunge yet, dive in and see what you come up with!
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