Life is suspended for the characters in this striking debut collection. Frozen with loss, numbed by the drudgery of routine, stalked by ghosts, or scared by their own violence, they hunker down and wait--for the return of sanity, new love, bloody revenge, self-control, or just enough courage to take one small risk.

Distinguished by psychological acuity and nuanced prose, each of these dozen stories involves a quiet--but pivotal--shift: villains become heroes, a fall proves to be redemption, a wrong is righted--or made worse. An aspiring nightclub singer joins a group of people waiting for the demolition of a condemned bridge; a jogger who thinks he's conquered his violent past is undone by a surprise visit from his grandson; a saleswoman who prides herself on her quick understanding of customers realizes, in the course of a holdup, that she understands less than she thought. All struggle to balance the joys of freedom with the comforts of safety, the dangers of chaos with the reassurance of restraint.

Liberally laced with the color and texture of teh pacific Northwest--San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland--Breathe at Every Other Stroke introduces a writer of sharp and singular observations. With sly wit and broad compassion, Pamela Gullard depicts the bumpy acquisition of wisdom.