[A] glorious, glittery saga of friendship and loss... I read The
Air You Breathe in two nights. (One might say I inhaled it.). --NPR
Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga.--O, The Oprah
Magazine
Enveloping...Peebles understands the shifting currents of female
friendship, and she writes so vividly about samba that you close the
book certain its heroine's voices must exist beyond the page. -People
The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and
pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the
other.
Some friendships, like romance, have the feeling of fate.
Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a
sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes
everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is
clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly
different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and
then, on a deeper level, over music.
One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul
and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion,
the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the
only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two
is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine
each of their fortunes--and haunt their memories.
Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of
Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the
Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The
Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship--its
unparalleled rewards and lasting losses--and considers what we owe to
the relationships that shape our lives.
