Breath: A Novel

By Tim Winton

Now a major motion picture, starring Simon Baker, Elizabeth Debicki, and Richard Roxburgh.

Breath, by renowned Australian author Tim Winton, is a story of risk, of learning one's limits by challenging death.

On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrill-seeking teenage boys fall under the spell of a veteran big-wave surfer named Sando. Their mentor urges them into a regiment of danger and challenge, and the boys test themselves and each other on storm swells and over shark-haunted reefs. The boys give no thought to what they could lose, or to the demons that drive their mentor on into ever-greater danger. Venturing beyond all caution--in sports, relationships, and sex--each character approaches a point from which none of them will return undamaged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 27, 2008
• ISBN: 9781429901246

Tim Winton

Tim Winton has published over twenty books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into many different languages. 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). Active in the environmental movement, he is the Patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society. He lives in Western Australia.

Book preview

WE COME SWEEPING up the tree-lined boulevard with siren and lights and when the GPS urges us to make the next left we take it so fast that all the gear slams and sways inside the vehicle. I don’t say a thing. Down the dark suburban street I can see the house lit like a cruise ship.

Got it, she says before I can point it out.

Feel free to slow down.

Making you nervous, Bruce?

Something like that, I murmur.

But the fact is I feel brilliant. This is when I feel good, when the nerve-ends are singing, the gut tight with anticipation. It’s been a long, slow shift and there’s never been any love lost between Jodie and me. At handover I walked up on a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear. But that was hours ago. Now I’m alert and tingly with dread. Bring it on.

At the call address Jodie kills the siren and wheels around to reverse up the steep drive. She’s amped, I guess, and a bit puffed up with a sense of her own competence. Not a bad kid, just green. She doesn’t know it but I’ve got daughters her age.

When she hits the handbrake and calls in our arrival at the job I jump out and rip the side door back to grab the resus kit. Beneath the porch steps on the dewy grass is a middle-aged bloke hugging himself in silence and I can see in a moment that although he’s probably done his collarbone he’s not our man. So I leave him to Jodie and go on up to announce myself in the open doorway.

In the livingroom two teenage girls hunch at opposite ends of a leather couch.

Upstairs? I ask.

One of them points without even lifting her head, and already I know that this job’s become a pack and carry. Usually they see the uniform and light up with hope, but neither of them gives me as much as a glance.

The bedroom in question isn’t hard to find. A little mat of vomit in the hall. Splinters of wood. I step over the broken-down door and see the mother at the bed where the boy is laid out, and as I quietly introduce myself I take it all in. The room smells of pot and urine and disinfectant and it’s clear that she’s cut him down and dressed him and tidied everything up.

I slip in beside her and do the business but the kid’s been gone a while. He looks about seventeen. There are ligature marks on his neck and older bruises around them. Even while I’m going through the motions she strokes the boy’s dark, curly hair. A nice-looking kid. She’s washed him. He smells of Pears soap and freshly laundered clothes. I ask for her name and for her son’s, and she tells me that she’s June and the boy’s name is Aaron.

I’m sorry, June, I murmur, but he’s passed away.

I know that.

You found him a while ago. Before you called.

She says nothing.

June, I’m not the police.

They’re already on their way.

Can I open the wardrobe? I ask as Jodie steps into the doorway.

I’d prefer that you didn’t, says June.

Okay. But you know that the police will.

Do they have to?

The mother looks at me properly for the first time. She’s a handsome woman in her forties with short, dark hair and arty pendant earrings, and I can imagine that an hour ago, when her lipstick and her life were still intact, she’d have been erect and confident, even a little haughty.

It’s their job, June.

You seem to have made some kind of … assumption.

June, I say, glancing up at Jodie. Let’s just say I’ve seen a few things in my time. Honestly, I couldn’t begin to tell you.

Then you’ll tell me how this happened, why he’s done this to himself.

I’ve called for another car, says Jodie.

Yeah, good, I mutter. June, this is Jodie. She’s my partner tonight.

Go ahead and tell me why.

Because your husband’s broken his collarbone, says Jodie. He broke down the door here, right?

So what do I tell them? the mother asks, ignoring Jodie altogether.

That’s really for you to decide, I say. But there’s no shame in the truth. It’s fairer on everybody.

The woman looks at me again. I squat in front of her beside the bed. She smooths the skirt down onto her knees.

I must be transparent, she murmurs.

I try to give her a kindly smile but my face feels stiff. Behind her I can see the usual posters on the wall: surfers, rockstars, women in provocative poses. The bookshelf above the desk has its sports trophies and souvenirs from Bali and the computer goes through a screensaver cycle of the twin towers endlessly falling. She reaches for my hand and I give it to her. She feels no warmer than her dead son.

No one will understand.

No, I say. Probably not.

You’re a father.

Yes, I am.

Car doors slam in the street below.

June, would you like a moment alone with Aaron before the police come in?

I’ve had my moment, she says, letting go my hand to pat her hair abstractedly.

Jodie? Will you just pop down and let the police know where we are?

Jodie folds her arms petulantly but goes with a flick of her little blonde ponytail.

That girl doesn’t like you.

No, not much.

So what do I do?

I can’t advise you, June.

I’ve got other children to consider.

Yes.

And a husband.

He will have to go to hospital, I’m afraid.

Lucky him.

I get to my feet and collect my kit. She stands and brushes her skirt down and gazes back at the boy on the bed.

Is there anyone else you’d like me to call?

Jodie and two cops appear at the door.

Call? says June. You can call my son back. As you can see, he’s not listening to his mother.

When we’re almost back to the depot for knock-off Jodie breaks the silence.

So when were you planning to let me know what all that was about?

All what?

With that poor woman. For a moment there I thought you were flirting with her.

Well, you can add that to your list of complaints.

Look, I’m sorry.

Arrogant, aloof, sexist, bad communicator, gung-ho. Obviously I missed a few things, coming in late. But for the record, Jodie, I’m not a Vietnam vet. Believe it or not, I’m not old enough.

I feel awful, alright?

So get a roster change. Be my guest. But don’t do your bitching at handover in the middle of the bloody shed with your back to the door. It’s unfriendly and it’s unprofessional.

Look, I said I was sorry.

When I look across at her I see in the lights of a passing truck that she’s almost in tears. She hangs on to the wheel as though it’s all that’s holding her together.

You okay?

She nods. I roll a window down. The city smells of wet lawns and exhaust fumes.

I didn’t think it would hit me that hard.

What?

That was my first suicide, she murmurs.

Yeah, it’s tough. But it wasn’t suicide.

Jesus, Bruce, they had to bust in the door and cut him down. The kid hanged himself.

Accidentally.

And how the hell do you know?

I’m a know-all. Remember?

She grimaces and I laugh.

God, you’re a strange man.

So I gather.

You’re not gonna tell me, are you? I can’t believe you won’t tell me.

I sit there a minute and think of those poor bastards sanitizing the scene before we showed up. The mother sitting there, trying to choose one shame over another. The other kids downstairs cold with shock. The father out on the grass like a statue.

Maybe another time, I say.

Well, she says. I rest my case.

We ride back to the shed in silence.

I hurtle on too long through the pounding submarine mist. End over end in my caul of bubbles until the turbulence is gone and I’m hanging limp in a faint green light while all the heat ebbs from my chest and the life begins to leach out of me. And then a white flash from above. Someone at the surface, swimming down. Someone to pull me up, drag me clear, blow air into me hot as blood. He spears down and stops short and I recognize my own face peering through the gloom, hesitating an arm’s length away, as if uncertain of how to proceed. My own mouth opens. A chain of shining bubbles leaks forth but I do not understand.

So I wake with a grunt on the sofa in the empty flat where afternoon sun pours through the sliding door. Still in uniform. The place smells of sweat and butter chicken. I get up, crack the door and smell the briny southerly. I take a piss, put the kettle on and snatch the didj up off the seagrass matting of the floor. Out on the balcony my herbs are green and upright. I tamp down the beeswax around the pipe mouth and clear my throat. Then I blow until it burns. I blow at the brutalist condos that stand between me and the beach. I blow at the gulls eating pizza down in the carpark and the wind goes through me in cycles, hot and droning and defiant. Hot at the pale sky. Hot at the flat, bright world outside.

I GREW UP IN a weatherboard house in a mill town and like everyone else there I learnt to swim in the river. The sea was miles away but during big autumn swells a salty vapour drifted up the valley at the height of the treetops, and at night I lay awake as distant waves pummelled the shore. The earth beneath us seemed to hum. I used to get out of bed and lie on the karri floorboards and feel the rumble in my skull. There was a soothing monotony in the sound. It sang in every joist of the house, in my very bones, and during winter storms it began to sound more like artillery than mere water. I thought of the Blitz and my mother’s stories of all-night bombing raids, how she came up out of the ground with her parents to find entire streets gone. Some winter mornings I turned on the radio at breakfast half expecting to hear the news that whole slabs of the district had been lost to the sea – fences, roads, forest and pasture – all chewed off like so much cake.

My father was afraid of the sea and my mother seemed indifferent to it and in this they were typical of the place. It was the way most locals were when I was a boy, and they were equally anxious or ambivalent about the forest around us. In Sawyer you kept to the mill, the town, the river. On Sundays blokes from the sawmill liked to row all the way down to the broad shallows of the inlet to fish for whiting and flathead and my father went with them. I can’t even remember who owned those long, heavy dories moored to stakes near the riverbank – they always seemed rather municipal – and whoever climbed in first became oarsman and skipper. The trip downstream could take an hour or more, especially if you stopped at snags and sloughs to try for bream. On rare mornings when the bar was open and the sea flat, a few boats ventured out to catch snapper, but the old boy would never leave the shelter of the estuary and no one, man or boy, could shame him into going further.

He began to take me along when I was seven. I liked the creak of the oars in their rowlocks, the disembodied shadows of pelicans rushing over the mottled flats. The big wooden dories held three or four men each, and it was quiet out there with them on the water. The other men were always tired and hungover, but my old man was just naturally subdued. When any of them spoke up they had the barking tone of the industrial deaf. They had fags-and-sawdust coughs, those men. Their jungle hats stank of prawns and fishblood. They were bachelors and returned soldiers and bank-beaten farmers who seemed oddly solicitous of my father even if they did mock him for his teetotal ways. He was a greengrocer’s boy from a village in Kent who never told me stories about his old life. But he was no mystery to his workmates. He was, simply put, a steady hand and as far as I could see this was all they required of him.

We fished with handlines and sinkers moulded from lead roof flashing, and while we filled hessian sacks and wiped slime and scales off on the scarred wooden thwarts, the surf bumped the high, white levee of the bar. Manes of spray hung above the rivermouth and flagged back in the breeze. When the bite was slow and I grew bored and restless, the old man consented to row me across to where I could get out and climb up onto the sandy wall and watch the great seas roll in.

I was a lone child and solitary by nature. Somewhere along the way I became aware that my parents were old people with codgers’ interests. They pottered about with their vegetables and poultry. They smoked their own fish and mended and embroidered. Of an evening they listened to the radio, or the wireless, as they called it. Although they weren’t quite grandparent age, they were definitely of a different order to the parents of other kids, and I felt that their singularity marked me out somehow. I felt protective of them, even if I was, in truth, a little embarrassed. Like them I didn’t care much for football or cricket. I avoided teams of any kind and the prospect of organized sport was a misery. I did like to hike and climb but it was only in swimming that I really excelled and this must have been quite a surprise to my emigrant parents, neither of whom could swim to save themselves.

At the first signs of spring giving way to summer townie kids gathered after school near the bridge at the riverbank to dive off the crude springboard. The river was brown with tannin and cold as hell but it was very slow-flowing and safe to swim in. It was there that Loonie and I became friends.

Ivan Loon was twelve and a whole year older than me. He was the publican’s son and although we’d been at school together half our lives we never had the remotest thing in common. That is, before we realized that we’d each independently perfected the art of causing riverside panic.

One November afternoon I coasted down to the river on my bike to have a jump off the plank but when I got there four girls and somebody’s mother were slithering up and down the bank, yanking at their own ears and screaming that there was a boy in the water, that he was drowning right beneath them. Naturally they didn’t know which boy because they were from out of town, but they knew he was a boy for he’d been there a minute ago and simply hadn’t come up from a dive and were there sharks and couldn’t I for God’s sake stop asking questions and just get on with doing something.

Sun blazed down in rods through the big old gums. There were dragonflies in the air above us. I saw a towel near the diving plank and beside it a grubby pair of thongs, so I had no reason to doubt there was a crisis. Only the sluggish water seemed harmless and these females, who were making a frightful noise, looked so strangely out of place. I should have twigged. But I went into action on their behalf. As I bolted out to the sagging end of the springboard the wood was hot and familiar underfoot. I looked down at the wind-ruffled surface of the river and tried to think. I decided that it would be best to wade in from the bank, to work my way out by feel, and just keep diving and groping in the hope of touching something human. There wasn’t time to go looking for help. I was it. I felt myself rise to the moment – put-upon but taller all of a sudden – and before I could embark upon my mission, or even pull my shirt off, Ivan Loon burst from the water. He came up so close to shore with such a feral shriek the woman fell back on the mud as if

Reviews for Breath

[drmaf-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Superb evocation of the surf culture in Australia in the 70's, wistful and nostalgic, as Bruce Pike looks back on his adolescence in rural Western Australia, where, nicknamed Pikelet, he and his best friend Loonie graduate from childish pranks in the water to cutting their teeth in the surf. They are befriended by the enigmatic Sando, a past champion on the world circuit, who has abandoned competitive surfing to live a hippy lifestyle with his embittered American wife Eva, recovering from a bad injury which destroyed her skiing career, and pursues even greater challenges in waves that have never been surfed. He pushes to boys to challenge themselves, which suits Loonie , but makes the cautious Pikelet even more hesitant. In the end, left behind while Sando and Loonie go chasing surf in Asia, he turns to the sulking Eva, but finds his relationship with her poses as many challenges as tackling big waves. In a rather lengthy epilogue, Pike looks back on his own choices and the choices of his friends. Winton's descriptions of the sea and the surf are superb, literally breath-taking, and his capture of adolescent male angst and uncertainty equally engrossing, but somewhere along the line the book just seems to lack some emotional substance. Sando's need to drag the boys along with him is never really explained, equally Eva's sour bitterness and her fairly ruthless sexual exploitation of young Pikelet seem much deeper than just her injury and her annoyance with Sando's carefree lifestyle would indicate, but she remains a cipher whose motivations are left largely unexplored. In the end its a fairly conventional coming of age story made special by wonderful surf scenes, coloured by my own nostalgia for growing up on the beach in 70's Australia. A good book, a great read but falls a touch short of Winton's earlier works like Cloudstreet and In the Winter Dark.

[teaswirls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Phenomenal.

[csemortimer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first three quarters of this book was amazing - such detail of surfing and boy activity and relationships. Like so many of these sort of books the parents are either extremely intrusive - such as Loonie's Dad - or just there making sure the daily things happen - such as Pikelet's parents. Not really sure why the last quarter had to go the way it did or why Pikelet lacked the resilience to get on with his life when he was able to tackle those waves. So although the writing was beautiful it just didn't work at the end for me.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's not mentioned on the cover, and only once in the acres of reviews quoted on the first few pages, but this novel is about surfing. It's the elephant with long blond hair and baggy shorts in the room.I'm guessing this author writes about surfing a lot. I would never have believed the experience of "riding" a 20ft wave, falling off and being knocked about by the sea could be adequately conveyed just using words on a page, but the description was superb time after time. The writing takes you right into the world of surfing so that you feel as though you were really there in the water. He certainly knows his element.Seekers of deep literary meaning will enjoy the many ways in which the theme of breath is explored within the novel; people like me will be happy just to be entertained by a story of people addicted to living on the edge. It would have been five stars for sure but...would it really have hurt just to add speech marks?

[majamase · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book captures the essence of small town coastal Australia, the thrill of surfing and the impact of ones peers on life's journey. I am Australian and surfer so I particularly related to this book but I think it is very accessible to all.

[lydia1879 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Winton, Winton, Winton.

I wish I could like you. I really do. I wish I could like your writing style. I really do.

He's hailed as one of the great Australian authors, with lyrical writing something something majestic, something something award-winning novel.

... but I just didn't really care for this book.

I don't like the way Tim Winton writes. He's all about male angst, in this book in particular. The writing is good, but it didn't draw me in at all.

I had to read it for a course, and if it wasn't on the reading list, I doubt I would've picked this up.

There's just something empty about it, despite his depth of writing.

I didn't like this book, and I'd be hard-pressed to read anything else of Winton's.

[ron18-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Meandering story that doesn't go anywhere in particular.

[paradiseporch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

(Literary, Australian, 1970s setting) "Breath" is set in a small fictional village in Western Australia. Childhood friends Piker and Loon grow up daring each to more and more dangerous stunts. As teenagers, they take up surfing and meet Sando, a former pro surfer who leads them to new levels of daring.What I remember most about this book is the image of the beauty and the savagery of the west Australian coast. Winton put me on the edge of my seat, underwater with those boys.Breath won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2009.Read this if: you’ve forgotten the thrill of testing yourself to the limit. 4 stars

[elizabethcromb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Such musical language to describe surfing, youthful views of the world and life's struggles.

[jaylehnertz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first read “Breath” in January 2010. My second reading only confirmed the strength of Winton’s 2008 novel, at this time the most recent of his works. It is clear that Tim Winton continues at the top of his form. His language is extraordinary—poetic, strong, evocative, fresh, creative. For example, in “Breath”, the narrator (Bruce Pike) describes the impact of a charismatic surfer (Bill Sanderson) on him as an emerging adolescent: “Being with him was like standing near a lethal electric current. The hairs on your arms literally stood up and you were afraid and mesmerized, always drawn to connect.” Few of our contemporary writers can outpace Winton’s stylistics.

With the exception of “The Riders”, his novels unfold in Western Australia—in the narrow stretch of land sandwiched between the western sea and the eastern desert. It is a within that littoral that the bulk of Western Australians live. But that said, the waters of the ocean and of the rivers that empty into it are a presence in Winton’s writings. And in “Breath”, the ocean and its waters dominate.

On one level, the novel is a story about surfing. Winton devotes pages to Pike’s encounters with waves, swells and ebbs. But Winton’s works are always multi-leveled. “Breath” is not really about surfing but, as Patrick Ness in the Guardian (10 May 2008) wrote, about “fear, about pushing beyond fear, and becoming addicted to the pushing. Moreover, it’s a story about the price of being more than ordinary.” It is also another example of Winton’s sense that adults are inexorably shaped by the forces that impact them in their childhood or adolescence. Winton’s adults do not emerge from their youth unscathed. “Breath” as his other works is marked by quiet resignation and soulful acceptance.

[abshepherd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first half of this novel was devoted primarily to surfing. As a non-surfer not much of that made an impression on me. The remainder of the novel got into the meat of the "coming of age" story. I understood the impact that Eva had on Pikelet, but didn't quite see how her death lead to his falling apart in later years, when he had a wife and children of his own and hadn't seen or heard from Eva since he was a teenager. Just didn't quite make sense in my opinion.

[jodes101 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. The surfing, the coming of age, the times of freedom. This just spoke to me. Pikelet is the perfect antagonist and Tim Winton is so lyrical. When he describes moments in the surf my whole body just responded with a deep feeling of I know that I just didn't have the words for it - Thank goodness Tim Winton does.

[angela.kingston · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it - captured character, time and place in that magical Winton way. What a great first read for the club.

[dalzan_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the first part of the book, the narrator, Bruce Pike, recounts his boyhood friendship with Ivan "Loonie" Loon. 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 grown man initiates the boys into a kind of Spartan ethos, a regimen of risk and challenge, where they test themselves in storm swells on remote and shark-infested reefs, pushing each other to the edges of endurance, courage, and sanity. But where is all this heading? Why is their mentor’s past such forbidden territory? And what can explain Sando's American wife Eva’s peculiar behavior?The second half of Breath is concerned with the disintegration of Pikelet's friendship with Sando and Loonie and his developing relationship with Eva.

[suzannie1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

love this book so beautifully written and so descriptive of Australia and surfing ( I surf) am trying to get my better half who is not a fiction reader to read this as his first ever fiction book.! loved it

[mayap_37 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If ever a voice came through loud and clear on a page it is that of Pikelet, protagonist of Tim Winton’s 'Breath'. From page one, I could hear his boyish, Australian accent, and that of his sometime-friend, the half-mad Loonie, his quiet Kentish parents, the boys' friend, the self-centred surfer Sando who only lives to push himself to extremes and only seems to respect those who do likewise and Sando’s wounded, angry American partner, Eve.The sense of place is tremendous. I’ve never been to Australia but I could feel, hear, smell the muddy river where the boys learn to swim and their sleepy, small town life; the passages about the sea and the surfing, especially, are remarkable, the excitement, terror, danger, vividly drawn.I didn’t expect to enjoy this book at all having little interest in rural Australia and even less in surfing but in the end, I read it in three evenings. It’s astonishingly readable, riveting and compelling. My only reservation – the reason I give it 4 stars not five - is that the ending, when they boys have grown and parted, felt rather rushed, as if the author had lost interest but felt obliged to finish.I should add a warning too, since some might find the extreme and sleazy sexual relationship with an underage boy in the last third of the story a little off-putting, especially after the joyful innocence of the preceding chapters. It’s entirely in place within the story, especially considering the disturbed nature of that character, but I do feel some readers might want advance warning about it.

[presto_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bruce Pike, or Pikelet, now in his fifties looks back over his life and especially the years just prior to and through his early teens. He grew up in the 60s/70s in a small town near the South Australia coast, something of a loner until he meets Looney, a year older and with a lust for danger. They become mates and take to surfing. Sando, in his thirties married to an American woman, a surfer treated with a detached reverence by the other regular surfers takes the two boys under his wing; and Sando's home becomes open house to the two boys. But relationships between the boys, and Sando and his wife are not always what they seem, and there are some surprising developments.Breath is a captivating story, beautifully told. The relative innocence and freedom of the period is well portrayed; for one thing what today would be made of a man in his thirties taking an interest in two boys, ten and eleven years old? Yet there is not the slightest hint of impropriety here in that particular respect. For a time the story seems locked into surfing and living on the edge for pure thrills; but then events take a different turn and it becomes very much a story of Pikelts coming of age.In the last few pages Pikelet quickly take us through the rest of his life up to the present, and we become aware of the long term effects of his early life. Such is the power of the story that by this hard to believe that it is not autobiographical, with the consequence that it all the more moving, and reassuringly sad; however dissimilar our life may be from Pikelet's, we are bound to feel a connection, a common ground.

[readingwithtea · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

"It's easy for an old man to look back and see the obvious, how wasted youth and health and safety are on the young who spurn such things, to be dismayed by the risks you took, but as a youth you do sense that life renders you powerless by dragging you back to it, breath upon breath upon breath in an endless capitulation to biological routine, and that the human will to control is as much about asserting power over your own body as exercising it on others."Tim Winton's tale of growing up in the surf of Western Australia in the 1970s won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2008 along with a variety of newspaper awards, and I strongly disagree with their judgement. While it has the self-important and philosophical bent of the prize-winner (see also: A Visit From The Goon Squad and The Sense Of An Ending... and The God Of Small Things, while we're listing prize-winning books I can't stand), and the first phase of the book, telling how Bruce Pike's disenchanted teenage years with his shy parents were rescued by his gung-ho pal Loonie and surfing, is readable enough, midway through it rapidly descends into sexually-charged, faux-suicidal garbage, then putters along to its vapid conclusion.Pike is Everyboy, annoyed with his meek parents who are scared of the sea, quite a good student without being exceptional, sociable without being a leader. He meets Ivan Loon, town tearaway, and the two strike up a solid although occasionally fraught friendship, in which Loonie demands devotion and admiration, and cannot bear to be outdone. When the boys discover the allure of the surf and a mentor who used to be a champion surfer, their teenage rebellion is harnessed and they spend 100 pages enjoying life and being pretty normal. Winton struck the balance between carefree enjoyment and the thrall of danger, the discontent of youth and the battle between egos well here.Unfortunately, as apparently with almost every book these days, that wasn't enough. We had to have the infidelity, the unconventional and dangerous bedroom episodes, the betrayal and lying and drama. This passage ruined the book for me as it was an unnecessarily dark twist and felt like Winton was trying far too hard.The book gets 3 out of 1o rather than zero because of the quality of the writing and the authenticity of the teenage voice, but on the whole that is all there is to recommend this prize-winner.

[casualfridays_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There's something about reading Tim Winton, to me it's like coming home. An avid reader, coming back to Tim is comfortable and easy. This book is extremely accessible, he writes in a down-to-earth, easy reading fashion. I love how he makes up words to make us easily understand what he or the character sees or feels - just like we do in every day conversations.The novel is set in a small West Australia town and is focused around Bruce Pike (Pikelet) and his friend Loonie, who quickly become obsessed with the power of the ocean and in doing so discover power of life and love. It is a raw coming of age story with a twist in the end. If you think coming of age stories have been done to death then think again. Through the eyes of grown-up Pike we look back at his youth and discover how it has shaped him as a man.The book does end rather quickly but I feel that gives it it's impact. It makes a statement by leaving the reader feeling like they've been slapped in the face with a big dose of realism. The imagery and humour lull you in to a false sense of security, of a "happy days" kind of feeling and then there is this intense, sharp encounter that Bruce has and it changes the entire shape of the story and his life.I really love Tim Winton, love reading stories about my Country. The characters he creates are so very real and could easily be your neighbour or best friend. Thank you Tim and congratulations on another fantastic book!

[hethie · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Still love Winton's writing although I'm not a surfer therefore I couldnt really immerse myself in the pages of this book and feel what it would feel if I were a surfer.

[markkeeffe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great descriptive words. Exactly how it feels.

[mediapuzzle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a good easy read. I couldn't get through Cloud Street so I approached this with some trepidation. The subject matter (surfing) was the main reason I wanted to read it. There are some nice passages about male artistry and dancing on water that resonate with me. The passages about big waves and wipeouts are convincing. The sexual twist was unexpected and fused with danger.

[eldavi_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found it intriguing up until the end when he moved into the present.

[pennyanne_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I might be Australian but I've never lived near the Coast and so have no real affinity for the sea although I do like being near the ocean. I don't really swim and would never even try surfing so some of this book was lost on me. But having said that, it is a book I really enjoyed. Tim Winton is a great writer and his descriptions of ...the surf and the joy his characters feel when surfing were very powerful. At the end though I wondered what the book was saying about following your dreams and how to survive when those dreams are thwarted - seems to me that the characters didn't deal with the thwarting very well and I'm not sure I like the idea that following your dream might bring despair and confusion rather than joy - a thought provoking book!

[emccullough_10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The emotional power of this book washed over me like a silent wave. I didn't know what to expect from Tim Winton, and at first I was all at sea -- Winton plunges you without warning into remote small-town Australia and the even more exclusive club of extreme surfing. Before I knew it, I was fully engaged in this deceptively simple story. Superb.

[fliss88_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Responding to the emergency call of a fatal hanging, the memory of Bruce (Pikelet) Pike, our main character, is triggered into remembering and retelling us his Coming of Age Story. This is a story of teenage years spent in the water's of Western Australia with his best mate Loonie. About the blast of an adrenalin rush you get from the extreme fear of risk taking. How the paths you decide to follow through life, once taken are hard to change. A story of misplaced emotions and the unexpected twist of a sexual awakening story that will shock some readers. The foibles of small towns and all that comes with the odd assortment of characters who find themselves drawn together. Not my usual sort of book, but good enough to keep me interested to the very end.

[alenaroo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was recommended to me by am acquaintance who heard me raving about surfing. I am so grateful for her comment that helped me discover Tim Winton and this wonderful book. I started surfing late in life and I am not very good at it; but I can still relate to the feeling of being stoked so aptly described in "Breath". In fact, I have never met a better description of it. The story is powerful, the language is rich. I didn't find the last part of it offensive at all (as opposed to some reviewers here). This book is about growing up, taking risks and everyday discoveries, and I would recommend it to anyone... especially people who are not easily offended by intimate details of sexual nature.

[mjmorrison1971 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this really quickly and am still wondering about it - an easy read, interesting and intriguing characters but the central them of the book - the use of strangulation for sexual gratification cast a dark shadow over the whole book and left me feeling a little dirty when I had finished like I had been watching myself. The book draws you in slowly and by the time you find out the truth you cannot look away. I would have like to know more about the life of the man character between the ages of 18 and the scene at the beginning novel rather than the simple out line given in to book that would have expanded out understanding of him.

[bregog-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Set in a rugged and remote part of the West Australian coast, the story is about a young boy growing up in a small town, who develops a passion for surfing at a time when the sport was at its purest. The passion quickly escalates into one of risk taking as he and his new friends take on bigger and more dangerous surf. These risks extend beyond the surf and to life in general and cement the bond between the boy and his 'mates'.However, as time progresses, people change and the bond begins to fracture. Life's outcomes are not always as planned. Some bizarre sex finds its way into the book and some may find it a little offensive. Nevertheless, the writing style of Tim Winton is truly magical and he delivers a story that captures your imagination from page one. The distinctive Australian flavour is a refreshing change.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For me, most of this book was not worth reading. Perhaps 80% of it is really just one of Winton's books for boys, the Lockie Leonard series about boys having adventures while growing up, with an almost exclusive focus on surfing and water culture in 20th century Australia. That's not a bad thing to write about...but it's not for me, and it's not adult. I'm not only grown up; I'm an old man. It was all rather predictable and boring. In the last 20% of the book Winton then rushed through the remaining 35 years of the main character's life, introducing some interesting relationships and reflections on the first 15 years, but with a speed and a superficiality that left me wishing that these years had been the focus of 80% of the book, not the first 15. I reckon he probably had an old YA book manuscript in his second drawer and thought he could make more money by turning it into an adult book. Tim's got potential to do much better than this. But the critics and prize judges seem to disagree with me.