Baby's Breath

by Lynne Hugo and Anna Tuttle Villegas

What does unconditional love mean? Baby's Breath is a groundbreaking novel about a mother-daughter relationship shattered by a crime so horrific that even in our jaded culture few speak of it without... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0912184132
• ISBN13: 9780912184135
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Synergistic Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Baby's Breath

Calling all book clubs! Members of my book club have each had favorites or disappointments among the titles we've read. The only one that got unanimous approval, for being both a good read and great discussion, was Baby's Breath. A poignant, moving, sometimes disturbing novel about the tragedy of infanticide (epidemic in the U.S. and abroad), Baby's Breath has underlying themes of redemption. It's painful at times, but it shows how fiction can have potential as an instrument of social change.

A Book for Mothers of Sons

Upon reading this book, I found myself reflecting on the rearing of my own son. Would my son be capable of duplicity in his relationship with a young woman? Would he be capable of helping and doing the right thing? I had many thoughts of my role in his upbringing....did I do a good job - what could I have done better? Did he have issues which were not dealt with either at all or in part? As a mother, my heart broke for both Leah and Allysa. Having lost a baby of my own at birth, I cried as I read of the birth and all that Allysa went through. I also hope that this book may become a useful tool in the necessary change our society must undergo to prevent the infanticide as well as preventing our young women from going through Allie's nightmare. Allie might make a recovery with all the help of her family and therapists, but what of those young women who do not have any family support? What of those young women who will remained so scarred and mutilated mentally and physically that recovery is all but impossible? I would like to see this book covered by Oprah and her book club? Then perhaps the problem would be brought to the attention of the nation. I am but one lone voice and would like to see millions of people reading this book and then acting upon this sad situation.

Baby's Breath

One is not quite sure where one is being led at first, but once the story begins to unfold, there is no way to escape. This is a serious issue dealt with in a sensitive and often poetic way.

holding my breath

As an avid reader, a 20 year old daughter of a single mother, and a womyn's studies major, I rarely find fiction that I relate to specifically and strongly. There are three ways in which this book touched me immensely. The first thing that choked my throat was simply the relationship between mother and daughter. I've often encountered the prejudices from christian suburbanites and nuclear families because I was raised without a father. Rarely in our popular media does one find a true, unsteriotypical portrayal of the strong bond between a family like this of two womyn. The love spiked with intense pain resonates from both characters with such reality that by the second chapter I was crying simply from reading my experiences in someone else's voice. The tragedy of adulthood, the separation angst of moving to college, and the deliberate severing of emotional ties in trying to be an individual are all experiences many of us go through and usually don't talk about. The second thing that I reacted to is the natural mix of confusion, animosity, and conformity that most young womyn, especially once in college or out of the houses we were raised in experience. Without the emotional backbone of parents and family, in a new place, 'fitting in' is an emotional, physical, and spiritual struggle. Having problems with weight, not being blonde or rich, and not knowing one's social 'place' leads some to finding themselves, and others to try and create the self others want them to be. This tying in to the third and most poignant point. Pregnancy. Mass media has been depicting for years the number of cases where newborns are found dead or dying, abandoned after birth. How easy it was, then, to look and judge this as the most heinous crime of humanity. Though we have no problem blaming most murders on insanity, when a girl abandons her child the media depict the lowest form of evil. This book delves into the unexpressed psychosis of the mind behind the act. Striving to fit into society, please parents and friends, and finding her sexual self, our heroine does find herself in one of the darkest places imaginable, yet there is a new light shed on the circumstances. This book is not only a movement in the way of womyn, it is also a perfect and painfully beautiful portrayal of two womyn's minds in the mix of contemporary society's rules and regulations. I thank Anna Villegas and Lynne Hugo for taking this risk and great step forward.