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The Town That Forgot How To Breathe
The Town That Forgot How To Breathe
Jul 30, 2025 7:18 AM

Author:Kenneth J Harvey

The Town That Forgot How To Breathe

Bareneed, Newfoundland, home to a vivid cast of characters who, one by one, come down with a mysterious breathing disorder. As the illness progresses, its victims fall into silence and are gripped by dark thoughts and urges. Meanwhile, the once-thriving cod fishery has been shut down and people find their nets full of bizarre creatures - the incarnations of legendary beasts and characters that existed in the village's tales for generations. One old-timer, Eileen Laracy, gradually makes the connection: the act of breathing is no longer automatic for the inhabitants of Bareneed - out of place and time, they have lost a fundamental part of their identity.

Reviews

A novel of dazzling ambition and strange, haunting loveliness. Grippingly entertaining and bursting with life, it is an absolute triumph of the storyteller's art. Many books are hyped as "unputdownable". This one really is.

—— Joseph O'Connor

A master of his discipline rightly hailed as one of the best historical novelists writing today

—— Daily Express

A splendid piece of storytelling and a vivid recreation of a long-dead-world

—— Allan Massie

Hypnotic, spellbinding

—— The Times

Addictive... Exhilarating... A pleasure

—— Evening Standard

Murakami's most addictive fix to date

—— Independent

Engrossing and wildly inventive

—— Times Literary Supplement

Laden with philosophical overtones and enchanting wit

—— Observer

Murakami's exquisitely simple prose and deft evocation of the surreal are captivating and sublime

—— Sunday Times

The mysteries are never tainted by explanation, merely beautifully described, delivering a hypnotic read

—— Times Higher Education Supplement

Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility

—— Guardian

Vintage Murakami [and] easily the most erotic of [his] novels

—— Los Angeles Times Book Review

[A] treat...Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done

—— Baltimore Sun

Murakami's most famous coming of age novel of love, loss and longing

—— Dazed and Confused

Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed.

—— Times Literary Supplement

[A] treat . . . Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done.

—— The Baltimore Sun

One of the most poignant and evocative novels I have ever read

—— Palantinate

Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates heartbreak and loss of faith

—— Sunday Times
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