'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. (19980915)
Trick Is To Keep Breathing
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Amazon Review
Janice Galloway's The Trick Is to Keep Breathing opens with a woman watching herself from the corner of a darkened room. Immediately, Janice Galloway sweeps us inside her heroine's confused psychology. Alone in her flat, the woman (ironically named "Joy") sits quietly in the dark, nervously checking the clock, jumping at the shrill ring of the telephone. We learn through a series of flashbacks that the twin deaths of her married lover and her mother have brought her to this state of intense neurosis: "I don't feel as if I'm really here at all". Fragmented sentences and an irregular typography help to capture her deepening sense of dislocation and bewilderment.
With such a depressing subject matter at hand, it would be easy for Galloway's prose to become irritatingly introverted. With her sharp wit, however, Galloway skilfully prevents her narrative from sliding into egotism and self-pity. There is a host of minor characters to provide comic relief--the overweight, awkward health visitor; the pompous, irascible doctor; the man from the bookies who is desperate to seduce her; and the ever-mad Ros, another patient on the psychiatric ward where Joy inevitably ends up.
Galloway is writing in a long-established tradition of confessional fiction with mentally disturbed women at its centre. Like Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen in Girl, Interrupted, Galloway explores the complexities of the patient-doctor relationship. Where she differs is her sustained satire of the meagre attempts of doctors and psychiatrists to help their patients out of spiralling depressions. It is this sense of social critique that helped Galloway win two top awards--the American Academy EM Forster Award and the MIND/Allan Lane Book award--for this, her first novel. --Vanessa Cook
Review
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 )
A real achievement; its dialogue sparks and its voice is true. For Janice Galloway the trick is simply to keep writing (Scotsman )
This remarkably original work has gained Janice Galloway an almost immediate reputation as one of Scotland's most interesting serious prose writers (Glasgow Herald )
Poignant and original...a wonderfully sensitive portrait of a woman who doesn't give up trying to find the "trick" to making life go on (Ms )
A real achievement; its dialogue sparks and its voice is true. For Janice Galloway the trick is simply to keep writing (Scotsman )
This remarkably original work has gained Janice Galloway an almost immediate reputation as one of Scotland's most interesting serious prose writers (Glasgow Herald )
Poignant and original...a wonderfully sensitive portrait of a woman who doesn't give up trying to find the "trick" to making life go on (Ms )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 35 people found the following review helpful
By CJANI
Format:Paperback
An excellent book that shows how fragile the human mind is, and how little it can take to push someone over the edge. If you take a little time to read it, it's easy to see a bit of oneself - those slightly "irrational" things you do for your own reasons that no-one else knows of or understands. The writing style - fluid, personal, yet coherent enough to make a good book - is a pleasure to read and a welcome break from traditional novels. The only complaint I would have is that the ending is a little twee, but luckily this doesn't detract from the main content of the book.
Whilst this book isn't hard to read, for me it is a more significant read than the lighter "Girl, Interrupted". I found "Girl, Interrupted" a little too disjointed in its storytelling, and somehow doesn't get across the feeling of personal distress that is apparent in The Trick is to Keep Breathing.
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is a truly amazing book. I'd like to be more literate in review, but this book puts me in awe. The book is about a 27 year old woman named Joy Stone. Her illicit lover has just recently died and it sends her into a spiral of depression. Janice Galloway is one of the best authors around right now, and captures the human mind wonderfully. She has the ability to switch around perspectives, and making the reader (willing or not) venture into the character's mind. Her ability to mix dry wit with such a sad story make for a great read.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By M BRINSLEY
Format:Paperback
The tense, fractured, unorthodox, brilliant prose takes us into a mind that is slowly cracking apart, despite the narrator's heroic, nail-shredding efforts to maintain a grip on reality. Throughout the book, she teeters on the edge of madness, fit neither for life, nor for the strait-jacket, going in and out of an asylum, in a troubling, disorienting, see-saw journey. I found myself feeling for with the tortured soul, and I often rooted desperately for her recovery. The taut, frenetic, often foreshortened, sentences (which sometimes abruptly cut into white space) make for a challenging, unorthodox, sometimes telegraphic, read. We get the sense of the narrator's life cracking, melting, and breaking apart, in a series of crafty, disturbing, surreal images. Appropriately, there is no sense of a 'whole' life, only of its fragments and remnants - often strewn across a whole swathe of days, like the maimed pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. The book is disturbing, sometimes funny and Galloway has created a language of her own. It is the book that the author of 'Prozac Nation' might wish that she had written.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing
Very dark, but ends on a high (I think). Enjoyed the way that it was written. Certainly made me think
Published 19 days ago by Angela Tunstall
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable ish
Used on my kindle. Scottish text which will most likely be taught in schools soon. Not an amazing teaching text but nice insight to depression.
Published 3 months ago by Miss Eleanor M E Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars
New York Times book review said it best
The front of my paperback edition carries the following strapline from a NYT book review :
'Resembles Tristram Shandy as rewritten by Sylvia Plath'
That is... Read more
'Resembles Tristram Shandy as rewritten by Sylvia Plath'
That is... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Lady Fancifull
5.0 out of 5 stars
bold and believable
I first read this book back in the 90's and immediately passed it on to a friend with my recommendation. Read more
Published 20 months ago by shiney
5.0 out of 5 stars
A solid character study
I bought this book on impulse for just 20p when I was at college and it's turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2010 by Shane
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lasting out grief
How can you heart keep beating when the man you love is dead, a man who you're not even permitted to grieve for because although he had left his wife it is she who claims his body... Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2009 by Jo Bennie
5.0 out of 5 stars
impressed
The book came very quickly and was in nearly new clean condition. What a fast and cheap way to enjoy good books.Many thanks
Published on 4 Oct 2009 by Mrs. M. L. Macrae
4.0 out of 5 stars
Filled with darkness but a really good read
This book is a really good read from start to finish. Galloway tells the story of Joy, who is a woman who lives in constant fear and darkness. Read more
Published on 24 April 2009 by Miss C. Valcin
4.0 out of 5 stars
The trick is to keep breathing
well written initiating deep emotions and heart felt agonies for the reader. A thought provoking novel.
Published on 4 Mar 2009 by Jane Austin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Honest Literature
I read this book for school but I absolutely loved it. It is amazing how it conveys real feelings yet it is not overly moving/disturbing. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2008 by Ms. Victoria L. Anderson
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