Breathe is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates published in 2021 by Ecco Press.
Contents Part I: The Vigil 1. A Voice Out of a Fever Cloud 2. The Vigil 3. Post-Mortem 4. Time-Out-of-Time5. Unthinkable 6. A Rare Parasite 7. The Man Who Never Dreams 8. Respite 9. Wait 10. Spinoza 11. Bed of Serpents 12. The Vigil II 13. Urgent Care 14. Respite II 15. Secret Cache 16. A Theory Pre-Post-Mortem 17. Lonely Wife 18. "Please Let Us Help You" 19. The Vigil III 20. The Experiment 21. Orpheus, Eurydice 22. The Vigil: Night 23. Prosopagnosia 24. Hospice/Honeymoon 25. The Unbearable 26. Canceled 27. "Good News" 28. Breathe 29. Death Certificate Part II: Post-Mortem 30. The Wound 31. Post-Mortem 32. "Widow" 33. Skli 34. Grief-Vise 35. Chapel of Chimes 36. The Instructions 37. Hylpe Mi Plz Hylppe Mie 38. Voice Mail Message! 39. "No One Can Reach Him" 40. Missing 41. Seven Pounds, Two Ounces 42. Café Luz de la Luna 43. Clinic 44. Grief Counselor 45. Demon-Goddess 46. Blindsight 47. Dawn 48. The Good Widow 49. "Save Yourself" 50. The Examination 51. "Take Me Home" 52. The Lonely 53. Revelation in the Form of a Dove 54. "Thank You for Changing My Life" 55. Half-Life 56. The Adulteress 57. The Approach 58. Bell Tower at San Gabriel 59. Rio de Piedras 60. The Departure 61. A Voice Out of a Fever Cloud
Plot Henkin, 2021: Plot sketchDeZelar-Tiedman: Plot sketch
Reception Calling the novel "an allegory of grief," New York Times critic Joshua Henkin writes:
Henkin adds: "Oates lands the book's wonderful ending...both surprising and inevitable."Henkin, 2021 Library Journal reviewer Christine DeZelar-Tiedman writes:
Mark Athitakis at The Washington Post observes: "Oates makes Michaela cartoonish in the novel's latter stages. No rationality can reach her.... In its best moments, Breathe shows how that makes a kind of sense; so many relationships are made of the stories we tell each other. But it's also a novel that falls in love with its portrait of paranoia–and that's not a healthy relationship for anybody."Athitakis, 2021
Footnotes
Sources Athitakis, Mark. 2021. "Joyce Carol Oates captures the wobbly reality of widowhood in Breathe." Washington Post, August 23, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/joyce-carol-oates-captures-the-wobbly-reality-of-widowhood-in-breathe/2021/08/06/959902ae-e570-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html Accessed 25 March 2025. DeZelar-Tiedman, Christine. 2021. "Breathe" Library Journal, July 23, 2021. https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/breathe-1784301 Accessed 23 March 2025. Henkin, Joshua. 2021. "Joyce Carol Oates Explores the Cruel Course of Grief" New York Times, August 3, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/books/review/breathe-joyce-carol-oates.html Accessed 20 March 2025. Oates, Joyce Carol. 2021. Breathe. Ecco Press, New York.