Breath (novel)

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Breath is the twentieth book and the eighth novel by Australian novelist Tim Winton. It was published internationally in 2008.

The novel is set in a small Western Australian logging village named Sawyer, near the fictional coastal town of Angelus, which has featured in several of Winton's books, including Dirt Music and The Turning. It is narrated by Bruce "Pikelet" Pike, a divorced, middle-aged paramedic, and takes the form of a long flashback in which he remembers his childhood friendship with Loonie.

As young boys, Pikelet and Loonie dare each other to perform dangerous stunts in the local river. When they become teenagers, they take up surfing and meet a former professional surfer named Sando, who leads them to new levels of recklessness. The novel explores the boys' youthful urge to seek out the farthest limits of courage, endurance and sanity in an attempt to escape the ordinariness of their lives.

The second half of Breath is concerned with the disintegration of Pikelet's friendship with Sando and Loonie and his developing relationship with Sando's American wife Eva.

Publishers Weekly Signature review by David Maine praises Breath: "This slender book packs an emotional wallop."^[1]