How Do People Stay The Same by Mark Bowles

Told as a series of journal entries that move backwards in time, How Do People Stay The Same follows the life of Patrick Boyd – from the present-day contentment of family life and back to a darker, lonelier childhood. How Do People Stay The Same lays all of Patrick’s experience before us, with the challenges of work, housing and all the other pinpricks of existence jostling with his complex inner world. It reveals a fragile man ground down by the world around him – but who might just be able to change and might just have the hope of a brighter future. Featuring the exquisite prose and lacerating wit that readers loved so much in All My Precious Madness, How Do People Stay The Same is also a deeply tender project – an exploration of family, childhood, love, and the personal bonds that tie us together.