- Paperback: 471 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA; Reprint edition (22 Aug 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312424809
- ISBN-13: 978-0312424800
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.1 x 3.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,132,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Town That Forgot How To Breathe
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More About the Author
Product Description
Joseph O'Connor
A novel of dazzling ambition and strange, haunting loveliness. Grippingly entertaining and bursting with life
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
Kenneth J. Harvey is the author of several novels, including Brud and The Hole That Must Be Filled. Nine Tenths Unseen was praised by J. M. Coetzee as 'a harrowing journey into the dark underside of family life'. Kenneth J. Harvey lives in Newfoundland. (20040624)
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It is with regret that I have to start with a negative aspect to this book. It didn't quite grab my immediate attention the way that I hoped it would.
HOWEVER, I'm glad I persevered. This is quite simply one of those books best appreciated towards its conclusion - something a lot of good and even great works have in common. Only with hindsight do you realise how skilful the story is. The web of confusion weaved between its pages are possibly what slightly works against it in the beginning, and yet you soon find yourself as ensnared as the characters that inhabit the book and realise that this was the author's intent.
At times, it is simply an excellent portrayal of a dissolve into madness: the gradual liquefaction of a mind, and a magical blend of traditional community contending with modern, and vice versa. Historical, imaginative, mysterious and mystical, it is at once commonplace, yet both spiritual and supernatural.
Format:Hardcover
Superior transaction. Timely response to post-order address correction. Great price,condition; speedy shipment. 10 out of 10 stars! Most excellent!
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a gripping story, full of local Newfoundland atmosphere, with strong characters and a pacy narrative. It concerns the town of Bareneed, in the grip of recession following the collapse of the fishing industry. This remote area was already full of myths and legends due to its Celtic roots and its strong oral tradition of story-telling. A man and his young daughter come to stay for a month's holiday in a rented house and find themselves caught up in a series of strange events, as an epidemic of a strange respiratory disease sweeps through the town, causing people to lose the ability to breathe automatically and have to consciously operate their lungs.
Myths and legends come to life as strange sea creatures are found in the harbour and fish jump out of the sea and fly through the air. In time, the bodies of the long-lost dead are recovered in pristine condition. The towns-people are swept up in these events and they also manifest strange symptoms. Behind all this there is an intricate human drama involving severed families and restoration (or not) of painful relationships.
The book is well-written and has a literary quality reminiscent of Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" and will well-satisfy anyone who craved a follow-up novel full of Newfoundland atmosphere. Other's have compared the book to Stephen King's novels but I feel this is better, more subtle in its telling of the underlying human story.
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