Miles Franklin Award 2009

Breath, Tim Winton
Everyone seems to be breathless about this book. It is, indeed, an astounding story – until a somewhat after half way, when it becomes quite alarming. In the early part two boys earn a privileged relationship with a mentor, compared the likes of whom, Alpha Males are parodies of their own potential. The three amigos become a “boys own” secret society that transcends ordinariness by engaging with the forces of nature – so to speak. What they achieve is breath taking – literally. Inevitably, as they reach early maturity, the lads find themselves on divergent paths and the narrator loses his way big time under the influence of another adult – an older woman. This is the part of the book that alarms me, because up to this point I would readily have given it to kids in upper primary and lower secondary to read. I changed my mind about that when I came to graphic descriptions of - well, I don't want to spoil anyone's read, so I won't say. Tim Winton has written about people taking risks. In so doing it is he who has, in my view, taken a very real risk – I can’t help wondering, for example, what the media, responding to a politically motivated ‘feminist’ reading, might yet made of this story. I am absolutely certain that, had it been about adolescent girls, one of whom went down the same path as the narrator with an older male, the book would be regarded as an outrage. That said, I readily recommend it anyway, to parents of younger teenagers. But read it yourself first so that you can respond to their grief when they read it. I would put this book in the same category of cautionary tale as Bill Henson’s photographs.