DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

Janice Galloway author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:6th Aug '15

Should be back in stock very soon

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing cover

Galloway invites us into the mind of a woman on the edge, in a novel which 'resembles Tristram Shandy as rewritten by Sylvia Plath' (New York Times)

From the corner of a darkened room Joy Stone watches herself. As memories of the deaths of her lover and mother surface unbidden, life for Joy narrows – to negotiating each day, each encounter, each second; to finding the trick to keep living. Told with shattering clarity and wry wit, this is a Scottish classic fit for our time.From the corner of a darkened room Joy Stone watches herself. As memories of the deaths of her lover and mother surface unbidden, life for Joy narrows - to negotiating each day, each encounter, each second; to finding the trick to keep living. Told with shattering clarity and wry wit, this is a Scottish classic fit for our time.

A real achievement; its dialogue sparks and its voice is true. For Janice Galloway the trick is simply to keep writing * Scotsman *
This is like a Scottish Catcher in the Rye. You actually feel you’re inside this woman’s head, it is that visceral. And having experienced a downward spiral myself, I so admire her accuracy in every detail -- Alan Cumming * New York Times *
Claustrophobic but extraordinary * Sunday Times *
An account from the inside of a mind cracking up...its writing is as taut as a bowstring. From brilliant title to closing injunction, it hums with intelligence, clarity, wit; and, its heroine's struggle for order and meaning seduces our minds, exposes how close we all of us are to insanity. Joy, as Galloway's heroine reluctantly lets us know that she's called, is simply that dangerous step or two nearer the edge * Listener *
Distressing but immaculately written * Observer *

ISBN: 9781784870133

Dimensions: 196mm x 128mm x 15mm

Weight: 172g

240 pages