Galley Beggar Press acquires Mark Bowles’ second novel

Galley Beggar Press has acquired How Do People Stay the Same, Mark Bowles’ second novel and the follow-up to his Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted debut, All My Precious Madness (Galley Beggar Press).

Sam Jordison and Eloise Millar acquired world rights to the book directly from the author, and the book will be published in Spring 2026 as a B-format paperback, and as one of the publisher’s limited editions.

"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 2020s to the 1990s—and from the apparent contentment of family life and middle age to a darker, lonelier youth."

Bowles described the narrative as "a series of skin grafts, over 30 years, of a single life", adding: "I chose reverse chronology because for Patrick, as for many people with fragile mental health, time is always reversible. The present is by no means secure or inevitable. You can always fall through the trapdoor into the room where you were 10 years ago. The back-to-front story allows the reader to experience the pull of the past, its sudden and mutinous presence."

Galley Beggar Press co-director Jordison said: "It is an honour to publish Mark Bowles and to be able to bring into the world a book that again demonstrates his wonderful talent. Everyone who enjoyed All My Precious Madness will recognise the exquisite prose of How Do People Stay The Same, and enjoy its moments of high comedy, cathartic rage and unexpected enlightenment. But there is also plenty that is new and surprising.

There are new strands of philosophical enquiry, new questions that readers must face with Patrick... and also a whole new and exquisitely rendered emotional register."

Millar said of the novel: "It has the same rich allusiveness and dazzling éclat of All My Precious Madness—and it’s also a very tender and loving portrayal of family life."