The Town That Forgot How to Breathe: A Novel - Softcover

Harvey, Kenneth J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312424809 ISBN 13: 9780312424800

Publisher: Picador, 2006

Synopsis

Something strange is happening in the seaside town of Bareneed. Mythical creatures are being pulled from the sea, perfectly preserved corpses of long-lost villagers are washing up on the shore, and residents of the town are suddenly overcome by a mysterious illness that is making them forget how to breathe.

A page-turning gothic thriller reminiscent of H. P. Lovecraft, The Town That Forgot How to Breathe is "a novel of dazzling ambition and strange, haunting loveliness. . . . An absolute triumph of the storyteller's art" (Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the Sea).

About this title

Review

With no more cod to fish, Bareneed, the setting of Kenneth J. Harvey's powerfully eerie The Town That Forgot How to Breathe, has become another Newfoundland outport village on the wane. As one character laments, "Bareneed, once a lively and warm place, now stank of drabness and heartbreak." It's not much of a magnet for tourists, but it has attracted two visitors for the summer: a fisheries officer and his young daughter. Deeply pained by the recent break-up of his marriage, Joseph fails to notice the more curious aspects of the town. It takes him a while to hear about the townsfolk who've been dropping dead for no apparent reason. He's also slow to realize that his daughter Robin's new playmate is the ghost of a drowned girl. When he and Robin find an "exceptionally ugly" sculpin at the end of their fishing line, Joseph again tries to stay calm. But then he takes a closer look at his catch. "Feeling his fingers turn warm while he tried to disengage the hook," Harvey writes, "Joseph whisked them away. Flesh-coloured fluid seeped from the sculpin's wide mouth. A solid object began edging out as he wiped his fingers on his pants--a flesh-coloured sculpted orb, topped with something that resembled hair, matted in mucousy clumps." The porcelain doll's head that emerges from the fish is one in a series of unsettling sights in Harvey's book. As more and more objects are expelled from the sea, Bareneed's most painful secrets come to the surface.

By setting his story in this desolate Atlantic locale, Harvey seeks to do more than add regional flavour to a Stephen King-style tale of an ordinary community plagued by inexplicable events. Instead, the terrors that Harvey describes are rooted in very real psychological and societal traumas. What makes The Town That Forgot How to Breathe so cunning is the way Harvey uses the horror genre as the basis for a provocative defence of Newfoundland's imperiled cultural traditions. Even though his ornate prose style can sometimes get waterlogged in the scenes between the shocks, Harvey has created a book that is as compelling as it is unique. --Jason Anderson

From the Inside Flap

Something strange is happening in the seaside town of Bareneed. Mythical creatures that formally existed only in mariner's dreams, are being pulled from the sea. Perfectly preserved corpses of villagers long ago lost at sea are being washed upon the shore. And residents of the town are suddenly suffering from a mysterious illness that is making them forget how to breathe.
Recent divorce Joseph Blackwood has returned to his hometown in hopes of reconnecting with his estranged daughter. But when the young girl begins having visions and conversing with the spirit of a neighbor's deceased child, he knows that his daughter is suffering from some supernatural affliction. Now, with the help of some colorful village residents, Joseph must unravel this paranormal mystery to save his only daughter.
Called the literary love child of Stephen King and Annie Proulx, "The Town That Forgot How to Breathe is a page-turning gothic tale and a profound exploration of what it really means to live in the modern world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0312424809
• ISBN 13: 9780312424800
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480