{"product_id":"deep-breath-a-novel","title":"Deep Breath: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\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\/p\u003e\u003cp\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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Cranford Bookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46884342792349,"sku":"9781646222681","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/9218\/0125\/files\/9781646222681.jpg?v=1748471105","url":"https:\/\/thecranfordbookstore.com\/products\/deep-breath-a-novel","provider":"The Cranford Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}