Breath by Tim Winton

Have you ever held your breath under water and felt that rush of adrenaline when you finally come up for air? It's a heady, euphoric feeling, like a hit of a drug, and just as addictive. For Bruce Pike, "Pikelet," and his friend Loonie, life is all about that feeling.

Pikelet and Loonie grow up in Sawyer, near Perth in Western Australia in the early 1970s. They meet when Loonie pulls a prank on some local tourists, swimming to the bottom of the local river and holding his breath for over two minutes until they believe he's drowning. From that point on, the boys goad each other towards greater and greater tests of their limits, in a constant "rebellion against the monotony of drawing breath." Eventually, of course, they'll push each other, and themselves, too far.

Winton's style is spare and captures the character's sense of estrangement from each other and themselves. But it is somewhat infuriating to read for its lack of quotation marks. There absence is curious as unnecessary, as far as I can tell.

Aside from that pet peeve, though, it's a compelling novel about the drive to constantly push one's own boundaries and the humbling realization that one can only do so to a point.

Winton, Tim. Breath. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 218 pp.