Now a major motion picture starring Amanda Seyfried and Finn
Wittrock.
Compared to seminal feminist works such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's
"The Yellow Wallpaper" and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, A Mouthful of
Air is a powerful, tragic statement on motherhood, family, and
survival.
A Mouthful of Air is a compassionate and wrenching portrait of Julie
Davis, a young wife and mother torn between the love she feels for her
family and the voice in her head that insists they'd be better off
without her.
We meet Julie several weeks after her suicide attempt, on the eve of her
son's first birthday. Grateful to be alive, Julie tries her best to
appreciate every moment--"this tree, that passing car, the pretzel guy
up ahead on the corner. She has, for whatever reason, been given a
second chance"--but her emotional demons are unrelenting, and she is
slowly and quietly losing the battle.
Within the narrative of A Mouthful of Air is an argument about the
nature of depression--its causes, cures, and the price it exacts from
its victims. With spare, elegant prose, this brutally honest portrayal
of family and self illuminates the power and complexity of the human
psyche.
Originally published in 2003, A Mouthful of Air now includes an
afterword by author Adrienne Miller.
