Believe What You Breathe is narrated by Hassan Kone, a 102-year-old Sudanese nomad, living near the Red Sea. Hassan tells two intertwining stories; the story of his great-great-great granddaughter Lala and the story of Tom Smith. Tom Smith is a 42-year-old frustrated textbook salesman living in Syracuse, New York. His ex-wife is horrible, his teenage son is worse, and his career is a dead-end. Tom tries so hard to be a good person, a decent soul. But he lives in a world surrounded by such anger and hatred and hypocrisy. And his frustration continues to build. And it builds and it builds. And, soon, his frustration leads to grave dangers. But there is one person who can save him; Lala. This little girl, not yet a teenager, is the incarnation of the wonderful qualities of the women that came before her; her mother and her grandmother and her great grandmother and her great-great grandmother and her great-great-great grandmother. Lala is, in a word, "magical". But she is also very human. And the tragedies of her past, horrific scenes to which she was a witness, have only strengthened her powers... and her humanity.