Sando's need to drag the boys along with him is never really explained, equally Eva's sour bitterness and her fairly ruthless sexual exploitation of young Pikelet seem much deeper than just her injury and her annoyance with Sando's carefree lifestyle would indicate, but she remains a cipher whose motivations are left largely unexplored. Winton's descriptions of the sea and the surf are superb, literally breath-taking, and his capture of adolescent male angst and uncertainty equally engrossing, but somewhere along the line the book just seems to lack some emotional substance.

In a rather lengthy epilogue, Pike looks back on his own choices and the choices of his friends. In the end, left behind while Sando and Loonie go chasing surf in Asia, he turns to the sulking Eva, but finds his relationship with her poses as many challenges as tackling big waves. He pushes to boys to challenge themselves, which suits Loonie, but makes the cautious Pikelet even more hesitant. They are befriended by the enigmatic Sando, a past champion on the world circuit, who has abandoned competitive surfing to live a hippy lifestyle with his embittered American wife Eva, recovering from a bad injury which destroyed her skiing career, and pursues even greater challenges in waves that have never been surfed. Superb evocation of the surf culture in Australia in the 70's, wistful and nostalgic, as Bruce Pike looks back on his adolescence in rural Western Australia, where, nicknamed Pikelet, he and his best friend Loonie graduate from childish pranks in the water to cutting their teeth in the surf.

Tim winton breath book