There is a certain comfort in reading a memoir (whether fictional or real) knowing that however bad it gets for the protagonist, you know that it’ll all turn out alright – like walking down a dark tunnel and seeing the light at the end of it grow brighter. As a result, we never really feel the rawness of emotion during those darker times because we know the way out. In Mark Bowles’ novel How Do People Stay The Same, he brilliantly inverts the chronology of the memoir for his protagonist Patrick Boyd by starting in the present and taking his readers back down the tunnel, away from the comforting light and into the murky past. Our choice for July Book of the Month, this sharply witty yet tender novel unravels the seemingly stable present and shows the true presence of the past from a poignant point of view.

Beginning in 2023, Patrick spends his days with his bright and lively son, Thomas, making silly music and having funny conversations about made-up characters and inventions. And then we begin to travel back through the years, through the birth of Thomas, meeting the mother of his child, previously failed love affairs, memories of old friends, teaching Milton, landlord grievances, trips to Paris and the intensity of listening to Beethoven, his struggles with his depression and loneliness, therapy journey and the pain and anger of losing someone precious and how their presence permeates through the years.

The narrative reads like true memory – some float to the surface with such clarity, from the redness of someone’s hands to burnt coffee to women looking like they’d stepped out of a Whistler or Schiele painting. These are the moment where we remember everything our senses felt as though we could close our eyes and transport there. Other years are simply three or four sentences, a year in the fog of depression or filled with thoughts of one person, or years that have sunk to the depths of long-term memory. Reading back through the years makes present moments or characters seem further away as we are walking back down that rabbit hole through Patrick’s memories. This makes the reader more present in his past experiences, feeling his emotions in our present in a uniquely raw approach. Like Patrick during those darker times, we can’t see the way out facing back into the proverbial tunnel; it gives a more real sense of the moment in that time where we truly don’t know if it will get better. Fumbling in the dark alongside Patrick, we feel the tension and vulnerability in putting blind trust in finding that brighter future. We feel the powerful and profound depths of his journey, and the long and winding road that leads to his joyful days with his son.

Yet throughout the novel, the wonderfully poetic prose is punctuated with wonderfully sharp wit — after all, melancholy can be charmingly dry in its humour. From deliberately misnaming irritating musicians to nonsensical nicknames to signing a breakup letter with ‘adieu’, the narrative can ingeniously play and provoke the reader’s emotions, the humour jumping out and jabbing like delightful little electric shocks throughout this deeply moving story.

So, how do people stay the same? Simple. They do and they don’t. We still carry the selves that existed in our previous years and become a pseudo-Frankenstein’s creature, borrowing from past selves or other influential people when the situations or people revive those parts, for worse or for better. All of them are true parts of us, and yet not. How Do People Stay The Same underscores this in our own lives through Patrick’s story: uplifting, warm, piercing, yet deeply raw and reflective at the same time. Mark Bowles, I take my hat off to you.

“Brilliant, stunning… unlike anything else around.”
— Lars Iyer

“A journey backwards into and out of the darkness with a companion who is erudite, biting, witty, annoying, garrulous, overbearing, charming, angry, awkward and tender.” — C.D. Rose

“A savage and tender work of contemporary disquiet from one of the most distinctive voices in British fiction.” — Stu Hennigan

How Do People Stay The Same by Mark Bowles
Galley Beggar Press | 9781913111755 | PB | £11.99 | Out Now