"Breath" by Tim Winton

An audio book. Australia. Paramedic Bruce (a quiet man, separated, with grown daughters) arrives at a house where a mourning mother is beside an asphyxiated boy, Aran. She assumes it's suicide. He thinks it's an accident.

We go back to when Bruce was 11, growing up in Soya. He had boring UK-immigrant parents and a daring mate, Looney, who lived in a pub. Bruce had a sense of beauty, bussed to school and liked books (a refuge becoming a pleasure). They learned to surf together with fin-less boards. Bruce's father was against it. When they weren't surfing they watched surfers and rescues. They dare each other. They see who can hold their breath the longest. By the time they're 13 they've got to know Sando, an "old guy" (in his 30s) who lives with his young sulky US wife Eva in a wooden house. Hippy, he takes trips to Indonesia when he's not on the beach. He gets sent many surfboards. My guess is that they're a way to import drugs.

The boys discover that Sando was a surf-mag model. Eva used to ski but bust her knee and has a limp. Looney thinks she's holding his hero Sando back. Bruce wonders if Eva's worried about how Sando's accepting the adulation. Looney left school at 15 and started work. Bruce and Sandy have long chats. Then Sando and Looney go on a long holiday to Indonesia without telling Bruce first. He feels betrayed. The 3 of them go down the coast to a challenging wave. Bruce bottles out. School's not going well either. One morning he tries the local challenge, Old Smokey, alone. He succeeds first time, fails the next and loses his board.

Eva was a top free-styler before the accident. She thinks Sando likes being idolised, that he fears being old. She sleeps with Bruce while the others are away. She's excited by self-asphyxiation - a bag and a strap. He doesn't want to join in.

Bruce (15) gets Eva pregnant. Sando returns. Looney never does. Sando assumes the baby's his. They move away. Bruce's father dies. Bruce settles down in a quiet marriage, has a breakdown and for a while is instutionalise. Later Bruce blames Eva for his problems. In the papers he reads that Sando's become an inspirational businessman and that Eva's found dead - self-hanged. Bruce trains as a paramedic - thrills and a responsibility that gains respect from his daughters.

There's much description of waves and landscape, of "feeling alive" when taking risks. The words, in Bruce's voice, can sound over-written - "the decommissioned buildings seemed hunkered down, besieged by sky and sea and landscape. The steep isthmus beyond that was choked by thickets of coastal heath".

Other reviews

• Patrick Ness
• Goodreads
• Magdalena Ball (The breath motif is everywhere. There’s Eva’s breath in a plastic bag; Pikelet’s father’s Apnoea at night; the breath holding between Pikelet and Loonie that prefigures their surfing exploits; the exhalation of didgeridoo that narrates the story; and above all, the breath that is, metaphorically and actually, life itself. In the end, the journey becomes the point, and despite the damage, the breathing and dancing continue, creating meaning and value that needs “no explanation”.)