Summary

Breath begins in an ambulance, with Pikelet and his partner Jodie responding to a call in the suburbs. They arrive at a house where a teenage boy has hanged himself. Pikelet talks to the boy’s mother, who has dressed her dead son and tried to tidy up the scene. Afterwards, Jodie apologizes because Pikelet had overheard her complaining about him earlier that day. Pikelet tells her that the boy’s death was an accident, not suicide. Later, he dreams about drowning.

The novel then switches to reminiscence. As a child, Pikelet used to go out fishing with his father. When he was eleven, he came across twelve-year-old Loonie causing panic at the riverside, by hiding underwater. They became friends, and Loonie started coming on the fishing trips.

Pikelet disobeyed his parents by bicycling to the coast with Loonie. Some surfers from the...