Sign-In
Cart
The Trick Is to Keep Breathing
Paperback
Series: Dalkey Essentials
General FictionLiterary Fiction
Publisher Price: $18.95
ISBN13: 9781628976458
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: May 26 2026
Pages: 238
Weight: 0.66
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.30
Language: English
The widely celebrated debut from one of Scotland's most important authors tells the stark and honest story of a woman struggling to cope with the loss of her lover.
Janice Galloway's inventive, lively first novel is about the grief and breakdown of Joy Stone, who is pushed to the limits of loneliness. After the accidental drowning of her married lover and the death of her mother, the twenty-seven-year-old drama teacher spirals into anguish and self-blame. While the novel paints a portrait of a woman enduring great emotional suffering, it is also a story of warmth and humanity; it's the wit and irony found in moments of despair that prove to be Joy's salvation.
First published in 1989 and often compared to The Bell Jar, the re-release of The Trick Is to Keep Breathing is a modern classic, and a gift to today's readers.
Also in
General Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968-August 1968
Johnson, Uwe
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
Selected Writings: Robert Musil: Young Torless, Three Women, the Perfecting of a Love, and Other Writings
Musil, Robert
Agee, Joel
Paperback
Before Gatsby: The First Twenty-Six Stories
Baughman, Judith
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Bruccoli, Matthew J.
Paperback