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. 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. She doesn't know it but I've got daughters her age. She's amped, I guess, and a bit puffed up with a sense of her own competence. Bring it on.Īt the call address Jodie kills the siren and wheels around to reverse up the steep drive. At handover I walked up on a conversation I wasn't supposed to hear. It's been a long, slow shift and there's never been any love lost between Jodie and me. This is when I feel good, when the nerve-ends are singing, the gut tight with anticipation. Got it, she says before I can point it out.īut the fact is I feel brilliant. Down the dark suburban street I can see the house lit like a cruise ship. 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. In one memorable scene, Bruce stands up on his board for the first time: 'I only got to my feet from instinct, but there I suddenly was, upright and alive, skittering in front of all that jawing mess with my little board chattering underfoot.' A surfer and naturalist, Winton describes the water with a mystical fury that recalls Cormac McCarthy's portraits of the Texas plains. It froths and swirls and boots this story along with a vengeance. Winton grew up on this Australia coast and has recreated its landscape in previous fiction ( Shallows Dirt Music), but Breath features some of his most muscular, weather-beaten prose yet. It's hard to imagine a more formulaic coming-of-age story, but there also won't be a better novel on surfing published anytime soon. Bidding for the man's approval, these best friends - Loonie and Bruce - ratchet up their daredevilry, eventually shattering the innocence that binds them. Two teenage mill-town boys on Australia's western coast fall under the spell of a 36-year-old drifter and his enigmatic American wife. In Breath, Tim Winton brings their endorphin-soused world to life for the vicarious set.

Pitch down a 15-foot wall of water as it detonates beneath you and you'll know why so many surfers have a blissed-out glaze in their eyes. Winton devotes extreme attention to issues of landscape and geography in his novels.

On her knees tim winton