A Mouthful of Air
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Now a major motion picture starring Amanda Seyfried and Finn Wittrock.
Compared to seminal feminist works such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, A Mouthful of Air is a powerful, tragic statement on motherhood, family, and survival.
A Mouthful of Air is a compassionate and wrenching portrait of Julie Davis, a young wife and mother torn between the love she feels for her family and the voice in her head that insists they’d be better off without her.
We meet Julie several weeks after her suicide attempt, on the eve of her son’s first birthday. Grateful to be alive, Julie tries her best to appreciate every moment—“this tree, that passing car, the pretzel guy up ahead on the corner. She has, for whatever reason, been given a second chance”—but her emotional demons are unrelenting, and she is slowly and quietly losing the battle.
Within the narrative of A Mouthful of Air is an argument about the nature of depression—its causes, cures, and the price it exacts from its victims. With spare, elegant prose, this brutally honest portrayal of family and self illuminates the power and complexity of the human psyche.
Originally published in 2003, A Mouthful of Air now includes an afterword by author Adrienne Miller.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lean, minutely detailed and frighteningly convincing, this polished debut explores the mind of Julie Davis, a privileged 26-year-old New Yorker suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth to her son, Teddy. The novel begins just after she tries to commit suicide, soon before Teddy's first birthday. Back from the hospital and home with her husband, Ethan, and Teddy's live-in nurse, Georgie, Julie struggles to feign normality, continually reassuring herself that she can function perfectly well: "She will empty the stroller and pay for what she has. She will tell Ethan to bring home bottled water or just use water from the tap." The plot moves along the grooves of her depressed, circular thinking, fed by small, ordinary developments: a Knicks game, a Tupperware party, a trip to the grocery store with Teddy, a move to the suburbs. Tranquil as her life is on the outside, her mind never rests, constantly struggling with the voice in her head that she describes as a "skeptical, mocking, bitter person furious she is alive." Memories of childhood with her father intrude often. He called her Flower, but treated her and her mother roughly, leaving many scars. Another frequently heard voice is that of her mother whose motto is "If you look happy and pretty, then you are happy and pretty." Ethan is patient and thoughtful, though he has odd lapses, calling his formerly bulimic wife "Tiny." Koppelman skillfully builds suspense as Julie battles with her demons, conjuring up an airless, oppressively stifling world. Though all signs point to the disturbing ending, it still comes as a surprise.
