The Water-breather by Ben Faccini
The agonies of a painfully sensitive young boy as he tries to minimize the terror he sees looming around him. Amid the stifling heat of the Umbrian and southern French countryside, the story concerns a family's grief for a happiness that they cannot restore, and of one boy's obsession with trying.
Jean-Pio is the middle child, sandwiched between Giulio, his younger brother, and Duccio, the eldestJean-Pio is eight years old in the spring of 1978, and his boyhood is spent travelling in an automobile across Europe with his father, Pado, and mother, Aga. His father is a scientist, who seems to spend his life attending medical conferences in Italy, France, Germany and England. Jean-Pio, stuck on the back seat of the family Volvo, watches the red petrol warning light to see if it comes on and concentrates on avoiding a crash. Meanwhile, his mother and father argue and quarrel continuously. Every spring they drive to Italy and spend two weeks with their Italian grandparents. As a study of a young boy with all his fears and feelings on the surface, it is a sad tale, beautifully crafted.
ben faccini grew up in rural France, but was educated as a teenager in England. Since graduation he has lived mostly in Paris, working latterly for UNESCO, where he has been involved in initiatives to alleviate the condition of the world's 'street children'. He now lives in London.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780007118328 |
| ISBN 10 | 0007118325 |
| Title | The Water-breather |
| Author | Ben Faccini |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year published | 2002-01-02 |
| Number of pages | 304 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |