Readers can now rediscover one of William Goyen's most important works in this restoration of the original text. The House of Breath eschews traditional conventions of plot and character presentation. The book is written as an ethereal address to the people and places the narrator remembers from his childhood in a small Texas town. More than a story, it is a meditation on the nature of identity, origins, and memory.

William Goyen was born in Trinity, Texas, served in World War II, and lived much of his life in Taos, New Mexico. He wrote numerous short stories, novels, poems, and plays.