Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing

<p><strong>Lydia Peelle has given us a collection of stories so artfully constructed and deeply imagined they read like classics. It marks the beginning of what will surely be a long and beautiful career. --Ann Patchett</strong></p><p>In <em>Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing</em> Lydia Peelle brings together eight brilliant stories--two of which won Pushcart Prizes and one of which won an O. Henry Prize--that peer straight into the human heart. In startling and original prose she examines lives derailed by the loss of a vital connection to the land and to the natural world of which they are a part.</p><p><em>Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing</em> conveys an almost Faulknerian ache for the pre-modern South for a landscape and a way of life lost to the ravages of money and technology.</p>