[1] The novel is set in a small Western Australian logging village named Sawyer, near the fictional coastal town of Angelus, which has featured in several of Winton's works, including Shallows and The Turning.
It is narrated by Bruce "Pikelet" Pike, a divorced, middle-aged paramedic, and takes the form of a long flashback in which he remembers childhood experiences of friendship with another boy, of surfing under the mentorship of an older surfing champion, and of repeated statutory rape by the older surfer's wife.
Before the main events of the story take place, the opening chapter depicts a scene of two paramedics responding to an emergency call.
They first meet when eleven-year-old Pikelet stumbles across Loonie pretending to drown in a river in order to frighten a young family sitting nearby.
They then meet a professional surfer named Bill "Sando" Sanderson, who encourages them to pursue this ambition and offers to teach them both how to surf.
After teaching them the basics, Sando quickly encourages the two now-teenage boys to attempt extremely dangerous stunts in the ocean, using their strong desire for his approval to drive a rivalry between them.
Once his arm heals, the three take on an even more ambitious wave, Nautilus, which lies three miles offshore and breaks on an extremely shallow shoal.
He has one successful ride, which reinvigorates his battered self-confidence, but on the second attempt he falls and suffers multiple hold-downs from a series of waves, losing his board and having to swim home as a result.
While the others are gone, Pikelet finds comfort in Eva, and discovers that she was an elite skier whose career came to an abrupt halt after she crippled one of her legs.
Reviewer Cathleen Schine describes Winton as "a writer who values themes, a practitioner of what might be called the school of Macho Romanticism, or perhaps better, Heroic Sensitivity".
In Winton's conception, the very ordinary act of breathing can take on a grandeur when associated with "the ecstasy and brief transcendence vouchsafed to those who challenge seas".
[4] Andrew Riemer, in his review, suggests than "Thomas Mann dealt with the same paradox, the same tragic dilemma of beauty and destruction, in Death in Venice, though from a very different perspective.
"[5] He writes "that the choices he [Bruce Pike] made in youth will follow him, for better or worse, to the grave" and that Winton does not offer any easy solutions but rather leaves "the reader to ponder the implications".
The Publishers Weekly Signature review by David Maine praises Breath: "This slender book packs an emotional wallop.
Australian actor and The Mentalist star Simon Baker directed the production,[7] producer Mark Johnson having teamed to acquire feature rights to the novel.