Breath

Queensland Literary Award Winner
2024 Queensland Book of the Year People's Choice Award

'I am dying. I know that I’m dying, despite not having been told by my doctors that I am dying. I know I am dying because I’m in the dying room.'

Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a double-lung transplant at the age of twenty-one and faced a rare cancer at the age of thirty. What she has endured should have killed her, but her humour, courage and optimism became her best survival skills.

From her hospitalised childhood to her many friendships, loves and losses, Carly-Jay shares the fickle nature of life with candour and warmth. She writes with compelling insight about organ donation, opioid addiction and survivor's guilt, while still managing to find joy amongst the wreckage.

'Brilliant, funny, visceral – and real. Those who live close to death really know what it is to be alive. 'Breath' is more than memoir; it’s a conversation we should all be having.' Inga Simpson, author of Understory: a life with trees.

‘The only thing more remarkable than Carly-Jay Metcalfe’s story, is the way she tells it. This book is a love letter to the sublime human mess called life; an invitation to pay attention to every precious lungful.' Beejay Silcox

‘‘Breath’ is a taboo-busting examination of illness, propelled by a lust for life and language. Carly-Jay Metcalfe scrutinises the beauty and brutality of the human condition in a voice that is witty and original and true.’ Lech Blaine, author of Car Crash and Australian Gospel.

'The most surprising – and refreshing – thing about Carly-Jay Metcalfe’s memoir is how raunchy and raucous it is, especially for a book about lifelong illness ... It is, ultimately, a deeply affirming book, as big of heart as it is gutsy.' Fiona Wright, author of Small Acts of Disappearance.

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