{"product_id":"deep-breath-1","title":"Deep Breath","description":"\u003ch1\u003eDeep Breath\u003c\/h1\u003eRita Halász\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Catapult\u003cbr\u003eMay 1 2026\u003cbr\u003eEAN: 9781646223268\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 1646223268\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eItems marked as \u003cb\u003eWAREHOUSE\u003c\/b\u003e may take additional time to be delivered to your address or picked up in the store.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSynopsis: \u003cb\u003eA visceral and stirring novel exploring free will, memory, faith, and constructions of reality and the self, following a woman faced with the question of whether her marriage is abusive, and the life-altering decision of ending it\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen we meet Vera, her body and mind are on a precipice. She's just left her marital home to live with her father after her husband's violent outbursts reach a breaking point. She's experiencing sudden losses of consciousness, spells of insomnia and difficulty eating. Over the course of the year that follows, she reignites a high school romance, looks to her divorced parents for guidance, attempts couples therapy, struggles to mother two young daughters, develops a brief cocaine dependency, and tries to rekindle her artistic practice--all while questioning, in Halász's immediate, intimate prose, the infinite number of choices that led her to this difficult moment. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTowards the end of the novel, we follow Vera into a surreal funhouse mirror of a courtroom scene, equally comical and horrifying, where she must confront the many conflicting narratives of her marriage and separation and decide which one rings true. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith the emotional precision and formal elegance reminiscent of Natalia Ginzburg and Elena Ferrante, Halász offers a meditation on agency, subjectivity, motherhood, and the artistic vocation with an ultimately optimistic conclusion: life consists of forward movement, in which the biggest challenge--and privilege--is choice. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Halász's terse and unsparing syntax mirrors her protagonist's disorientation, splicing together different conversations and memories in the span of a paragraph, sometimes even a single sentence . . . It's a testament to both Halász's and Herbert's narrative talents that even when Vera's mind tips over a precipice, the reader is still able to parse her spiraling consciousness . . . Remarkable.\" --Jane Hu, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"27th Letter Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67391167463469,"sku":"21148","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0673\/3588\/0749\/files\/original_09316d07-970d-4bb0-b69f-73f91427a57f.jpg?v=1787352094","url":"https:\/\/27thletterbooks.com\/products\/deep-breath-1","provider":"27th Letter Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}