How long does it take to read The Trick Is to Keep Breathing?
Janice Galloway
The Trick Is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway takes about 4 hours 20 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 20 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1989. 236 pages, about 64,900 words.
9 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 7 hours 13 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 20 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 42 minutes |
The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Meticulously observed, agonizing and funny, this unconventional account of clinical depression marks the novelistic debut of the author of the praised short-story collection Blood. Drama teacher Joy Stone has become severely depressed following the death of her married lover. Surrounded by his effects in the house they briefly shared, she can't summon the will to work or even to eat, nor can she benefit from the concern of her friends. Interspersed flashbacks to the day of her lover's death have a sensual, physical quality that contrasts vividly with Joy's present detachment. The nature of Joy's illness--and its accurate depiction, captured partly by an unusual spacing of the text in addition to journal entries, interviews and impressionistic passages--makes her a difficult choice for a narrator: readers may lose patience with her lassitude or be unwilling to put in the time needed to decipher the basic plot. However, the ironic, self-mocking tone that ultimately saves Joy also saves the narrative. Faced with an impersonal health care system, her sense of the ridiculous takes over, and with it self-reliance. Galloway delivers a thoughtful, witty chronicle of depression and potential renewal.
Subjects: Depression, Mental, Fiction, Mental Depression, Women teachers, Scotland, fiction, Fiction, psychological
