The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

A real achievement; its dialogue sparks and its voice is true. For Janice Galloway the trick is simply to keep writing * Scotsman *This is like a Scottish Catcher in the Rye. You actually feel you’re inside this woman’s head, it is that visceral. And having experienced a downward spiral myself, I so admire her accuracy in every detail – Alan Cumming * New York Times *Claustrophobic but extraordinary * Sunday Times *An account from the inside of a mind cracking up…its writing is as taut as a bowstring. From brilliant title to closing injunction, it hums with intelligence, clarity, wit; and, its heroine’s struggle for order and meaning seduces our minds, exposes how close we all of us are to insanity. Joy, as Galloway’s heroine reluctantly lets us know that she’s called, is simply that dangerous step or two nearer the edge * Listener *Distressing but immaculately written * Observer *This remarkably original work has gained Janice Galloway an almost immediate reputation as one of Scotland’s most interesting serious prose writers * Glasgow Herald *What’s remarkable about this novel is that despite its dark themes, it manages to be uplifting… Joy Stone…is witty, warm and unfailingly honest about her hopes and fears. – Janet Ellis * Week *A very funny and sad novel – Penelope Fitzgerald * Sunday Times *Poignant and original…a wonderfully sensitive portrait of a woman who doesn’t give up trying to find the “trick” to making life go on * Ms ? *

Janice Galloway’s first novel, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, now widely regarded as a Scottish contemporary classic, was published in 1990 and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year. Her second novel, Foreign Parts, won the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award while her third, Clara, about the tempestuous life of nineteenth-century pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, won the Saltire Award in 2002. Collaborative texts include an opera with Sally Beamish and three cross-discipline works with Anne Bevan, the Orcadian sculptor. Her ‘anti-memoir’, This Is Not About Me, was published by Granta in September 2008 to universal critical acclaim. She lives in Lanarkshire.

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