The Air You Breathe
A Novel
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4.2 • 96 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
"[A] glorious, glittery saga of friendship and loss... I read The Air You Breathe in two nights. (One might say I inhaled it.)." --NPR
"Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga."--O, The Oprah Magazine
"Enveloping...Peebles understands the shifting currents of female friendship, and she writes so vividly about samba that you close the book certain its heroine's voices must exist beyond the page." -People
The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other.
Some friendships, like romance, have the feeling of fate.
Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music.
One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes--and haunt their memories.
Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship--its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses--and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Peebles (The Seamstress) presents a captivating if occasionally overstuffed portrait of friendship. Both born in Brazil in 1920, Dores and Graca are from different stations and have different gifts: Dores is an intensely intelligent and ambitious orphan who works as a servant on a sugar plantation; Graca is the plantation owner's charismatic and beautiful daughter, who has a remarkable singing voice. After forming a bond over music, the two girls begin to write samba songs together and form a successful partnership. But their relationship is fraught with jealousy and frustration and eventually fractures. The book is narrated from the present day, with Dores's recollections conveying the increasingly complex nature of the friendship as they pursued fame: codependency, mutual envy, their love for the same man, and (eventually) the revelation of Dores' unrequited love for Graca. This structure allows for a wealth of detail, but the action often slows to a plodding pace, and Peebles is prone to prosaic explanations of the characters' evolving relationship. Despite this, Dores's reflections on love, music, envy, and loyalty ache with feeling, and a hint of mystery surrounding the central relationship's dissolution will keeps readers intrigued until the end.
Customer Reviews
The Air You Breathe Review
The Air You Breathe is a powerful novel by Frances Peebles. The novel explores many different hardships of female musicians in Brazil during the 1930s as well as general servants. It is a fairly long novel and can be a bit dry and lackluster at times so that is why I am rating it with a 4 instead of a perfect 5.
Wonderful
Great read. Good story that’ll make you laugh and cry.
Unexpected Joy
I downloaded a bunch of “samples” and this was after one I downloaded on the “Featured” list - so I took it as a “toss in.” Turned out the be magnificent. Loved the writing - if it can be explained this way, you can “see” it move from black and white to color in your mind as the story progresses.