Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    This is How
    Unavailable
    This is How
    Unavailable
    This is How
    Audiobook11 hours

    This is How

    Written by M.J. Hyland

    Narrated by Rupert Farley

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    Read the ebook instead

    About this audiobook

    When his fiancée breaks off their engagement, Patrick Oxtoby leaves home and moves into a boarding house in a remote seaside town. But in spite of his hopes and determination to build a better life, nothing goes to plan and Patrick is soon driven to take a desperate and chilling course of action. "This is How" is a mesmerising and meticulously drawn portrait of a man whose unease in the world leads to his tragic undoing.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateApr 1, 2010
    ISBN9781407455969
    Author

    M.J. Hyland

    M. J. HYLAND was born in London in 1968 to Irish parents and spent her early childhood in Dublin. She studied law and English at the University of Melbourne and worked for several years as a lawyer. Her first novel, How the Light Gets In, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Eurasia Region) and for The Age Book of the Year in Australia and, in 2004, she was named Young Australian Writer of the Year.How the Light Gets In also took third place in the 2004 Barnes & Noble Discover Award for fiction. M. J. Hyland lives in London, England.

    Related to This is How

    Related audiobooks

    Crime Thriller For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Coming To Terms

      May 25, 2021

      Coming To Terms
      14 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reads

      Dec 30, 2019

      Summer Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      Soul On Sale

      Aug 10, 2022

      I was waiting for the call at the telephone booth. I’d been waiting for fourteen or seventeen minutes and finally, I decided to leave. It was pointless. I only had a 20-dollar bill on me and no coins for the slot. Hard rain was coming, some type of s

      9 min read

    • Article

      Daughters’ Bodies

      Dec 1, 2019

      WHEN I’M about to go away to college, my grandmother dies and my mother silently puts herself up for adoption. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO ADOPT ME: Kind, lonely, beautiful woman in her 50s. Dead husband. No children. Cooks and cleans. 4’11 and 90 lbs. Gu

      20 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2021

      “Psst, I need to talk to you.” My best friend, looking super excited, is pulling me toward the nearest classroom. It’s empty, and she shuts the door. “This is really big. I made a time machine, and it can take our brains back in time if you know how

      7 min read

    • Article

      Life Beyond Zoom

      Dec 3, 2020

      Life Beyond Zoom
      7 min read

    • Article

      After “The End”

      Oct 10, 2022

      I walked down the road with a hunched back and a wet cigarette in my mouth—the fire had died a while back. My hands were tucked into the pockets of my jacket, and my hair fell over my face, limiting my sight. But I wasn’t really seeing where I was go

      10 min read

    • Article

      Side Gig

      Aug 8, 2019

      Side Gig
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Good Samaritan

      Dec 6, 2022

      It was hot that day, hot for the morning and hot for April and with a stickiness in the air that suggested something had to break. I was headed up the street to ask my neighbor Meech to give me a jump when I heard a scream come from the fourplex next

      10 min read

    • Article

      Not Such A Wonderful Life

      Jul 27, 2022

      WHEN I’m in a supermarket, I start humming It’s a Wonderful, Wonderful Life. I have no idea why; it just happens. This morning, as I hum in front of the fruit juices, it makes no sense at all. Yesterday, I sat down to finish this column, hoping to co

      2 min read

    • Article

      Rising Sign

      Feb 4, 2021

      Rising Sign
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      Festival

      Sep 15, 2018

      My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock. From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and

      13 min read

    • Article

      Penny

      Jul 2, 2020

      Penny
      6 min read

    • Article

      Proverbs Of A Faceless Time

      Dec 1, 2023

      Proverbs Of A Faceless Time
      9 min read

    • Article

      When Wendy Asked What We Dream

      Jul 1, 2019

      When Wendy asked what we dream, I wanted to say war and drowning. Not drowning exactly, but the moment when the choice is made to drown or not drown, before the mouth opens. Instead I said I never dream of cats. But that night I remembered the cats I

      16 min read

    • Article

      The Night Card

      Jan 1, 2023

      Summer is so far away. * Last year this same occasion, there was more love among usin the room. More ice cream with olive oil,six or seven spoons touching the cold, melting cloud. Close to midnight, I tell him my pain. My pain,revealed for the first

      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Blocks

      Aug 10, 2023

      I lock my car and shove my keys into the pocket of my big coat. The parking garage is nearly full this morning, so I have to use the elevator to get down to the exit. The moment the doors slide open, there is a woman waiting for me. She is wearing my

      8 min read

    • Article

      We Don't Talk About That Here

      Nov 4, 2021

      We Don't Talk About That Here
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Leather Coat

      Apr 4, 2024

      The Leather Coat
      6 min read

    • Article

      Devotional

      Sep 1, 2021

      Devotional
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Problem with My Dachshund

      Dec 11, 2019

      The Problem with My Dachshund
      10 min read

    • Article

      Musings On My Father

      Aug 8, 2022

      Musings On My Father
      5 min read

    • Article

      Finding Peace—and Briefly, Freedom—at My Grandfather’s Funeral

      Oct 11, 2019

      “Saying goodbye with the people who loved him—and me—I remember that I am not the tomb that imprisons me.”

      6 min read

    • Article

      Philip Roth

      Jun 4, 2018

      Philip Roth
      25 min read

    • Article

      Counter Waves

      Oct 23, 2020

      Counter Waves
      8 min read

    • Article

      Thirteen

      Jan 30, 2020

      Thirteen
      21 min read

    • Article

      Six Stories

      Sep 8, 2020

      I’m on the train, traveling alone, with two seats to myself. I have to use the restroom. Without thinking about it carefully, I ask a couple across the aisle if they would please watch my things for me for a moment. Then I take a closer look at them

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Inner Chamber

      Feb 2, 2023

      The Inner Chamber
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for This is How

    4/5

    131 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      In M.J. Hyland's multi-award nominated third novel, Patrick Oxtoby's girlfriend Sarah has broken off their relationship. Feeling betrayed and humiliated, Patrick takes a drastic course of action: he leaves his home (along with the interference of his mother and his father's silent disapproval) and settles in a distant seaside town, where he intends to shrug off his emotional baggage and history of failure and start a new life. A university dropout who found a niche as a car mechanic, Patrick is not exactly a loner and certainly not a sociopath, but he is rarely at ease in the company of others, especially strangers. In the rooming house where he takes up residence, there is only him, the owner Bridget, and two other male lodgers, Shaun Flindall and Ian Welkin. In his early twenties, Patrick is the youngest, and he finds himself mostly outside looking in at the apparently easy camaraderie of the other three. Sitting alone in his room, he listens to the noises in the house and wonders what they are up to, if Bridget is in a relationship with either of the others, if they are talking about him. Welkin in particular causes him grief, with sporadic bursts of self pity, mocking and aggressive overtures of friendship, and sometimes obnoxious behaviour. When Flindall leaves for a job elsewhere, Welkin becomes even more difficult, and Patrick grows suspicious of Welkin's motives. Then a petty theft leads to an outburst of violence, and Patrick's life has changed forever. M.J. Hyland has written a taut novel of psychological suspense that is not always easy to read. Her portrait of an emotionally stunted young man desperately seeking a place in a world that only confounds and frustrates him is both chilling and touching. The "home" that Patrick eventually discovers is startling and unexpected, but makes complete sense in the context of the story that Hyland weaves. This is one of those novels that pulls the reader into a world where we don't necessarily want to go, but are unable to resist.
    • 5/5
      Maria Hyland is a superb writer, with a great prose style. Why this novel didn't make it to the Booker Prize defeats me! It is beautifully written and compelling. It's the kind of novel you will be recommending to all your serious reading pals. With a fresh emphatic prose style that picks the reader up and rushes them along, this wonderful novel deserves wide exposure and a large readership. Sympathetic, elegant, and sensitive. Hyland has been close to winning many awards, and this is perhaps her best novel. She is the author of three multi award-winning novels. How the Light Gets In (2003) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize; Carry Me Down (2006) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was winner of both the Hawthornden and Encore Prizes (2007), and This is How (2009), was longlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Dublin International IMPAC Prize in 2009. Hyland's short story, Rag Love, was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2011. J M Coetzee wrote, 'Fiction writing of the first order' and Hilary Mantel wrote, 'When you've been reading Hyland other writers seem to lack integrity; she aims straight for the truth and the heart.'
    • 4/5
      Patrick Oxtoby, the main character, is a strange young man whose interactions are prickly because he is extremely self-conscious and defensive. The academic promise he once demonstrated has dissipated, and he settles in a small town to begin his career as an auto mechanic. Living at a boarding house, he can't seem to settle into the rhythm of easy conversations with the other two boarders. One horrendous moment of unreasonable rage results in a life he cannot imagine, and M.J. Hyland describes his reactions, a mixture of disbelief, embarrassment and guilt, perfectly. Patrick is not a particularly likeable person; however, the course of his life's choices are riveting. M.J. Hyland has a deceptively simple style that creates a building of tension as understanding of Patrick's dysfunction grows.
    • 4/5
      Most of the time, Patrick Oxtoby, the narrator and protagonist of This Is How, seems disengaged from the world around him; when he does have to interact with others, he is obviously uncomfortable, sometimes anxious, sometimes angry. A scholarship student who left university after one year to become a mechanic, Patrick's short-term fiancée has left him, and he has retreated to a small coastal town to get away from his parents--a loving but controlling mother and a father who rarely speaks unless it is to demean his son. Patrick finds it difficult to relate to the two young men living in his boarding house who try to befriend him. He seems to have better luck with older women, striking up a somewhat easier relationship with his landlady and a local waitress. But just as Patrick's life seems to be getting back on track, everything goes wrong. The job he has moved for suddenly becomes only part-time; his mother shows up; Georgia, the waitress he is pursuing, just wants to be friends; and his attractive landlady seems to have eyes for one of the other lodgers. M. J. Hyland's sparse, unemotional narrative presents the portrait of a tightly-wound young man reaching a boiling point, and for a moment--just one moment--Patrick's carefully controlled emotions erupt in unintended violence. The consequences of that single act shape the novel's second half.Hyland's pitch-perfect prose creates Patrick as a narrator who, while not exactly likeable, evokes the reader's empathy. I found myself quite caught up in the first half of the book, trying to figure out the psychology behind his anger and repression. I was less interested, however, in the second half, which explains why my rating isn't a notch higher. Still, I'd recommend This Is How to anyone interested in the psychological study of an outsider coming to terms with his own antisocial behavior, and I do plan to look for more of Hyland's novels.
    • 5/5
      I liked MJ Hyland's first two books a lot and am surprised how long it's taken me to discover this one. It moves at what would be a slow pace if it wasn't so beautifully written that it feels more like an elegant dance.The only thing I can fault it for is moving that bit too slowly at first that, having not read the blurb or anything about the book, I put it down shortly before the pivotal moment at the end of part one and didn't get back to it for a week. Once I got to that point it was practically unputdownable despite the fact that it couldn't really be said to speed up.I love the title, makes no sense until you read the story, then it makes perfect sense.After three great reads Hyland's next book will be a serious contender for buying in hardback.
    • 3/5
      I might not have chosen to buy this had I not received it as an early review copy from LibraryThing. I enjoyed it, despite its bleakness. It's a bit like Albert Camus' The Outsider only set in contemporary GB.
    • 4/5
      Hyland manages to be spare with her language and amazingly affecting at the same moment. She has the ability to present a tragic story with a glimmer of hope so slight that I felt like I could only spot it in the corner of my eye. The work of an author totally at ease with her style.
    • 5/5
      A fantastic read that is extremely hard to put down. Like other readers I found this book very fast to get through - easily within a weekend. I also found it easy to identify with elements of the main charcter. I think every young man has gone through many of the emotions that Patrick Oxtoby goes through in this book. It was an incredibly intriguing insight into the thoughts and feelings of someone whose life is completely changed in an instance as a consequence of one foolish action. It didn't seem alien to me - it felt like it could happen to anyone. I will definitley be reading more from this author as I enjoyed this book so much.
    • 5/5
      Could not put it down. I was drawn into this tragis story.
    • 5/5
      Powerful and incredibly sad - one of the best books I have read. Patrick is swept along by life, not knowing who he is or determining its outcome. An act of violence has catastrophic consequences in ensuring his imprisonment. The nature of that imprisonment is horrific and yet there is a sense of liberation and self knowledge finally. It left me stunned.
    • 4/5
      a disturbing and compelling read. A brilliant follow up to Carry me down. Patrick is iniaiily and indeed for much of the book wholly unsympathetic and yet vulnerable and pathetic creature his fate seems almost preordained yet he is the author of his own misfortune with a Larkinesque nod to the nature / nurture debate. The corruption and abuse inside the prison system is well documented. A must read! !!!
    • 5/5
      This is certainly, for me, one of the best books I've read this year. It is very well written and I found it hard to put down. The book is about a loner, and is written in first person. Although we never get to know Patrick, I think that is what makes the book what it is. At the beginning he seems to almost be psychopathic, on the verge of madness;, his behaviour seems to be that of somebody who is suffering from some kind of mental illness and he seems to be unable to feel anything. I think that's perhaps why there was a sense of distance from him. As the book progresses, gradually Patrick's character begins to soften and, for me, he starts to become normalised, although the situation that he is in is not a normal situation by any means.Great book.
    • 2/5
      I was a little disappointed with This Is How, having enjoyed Carry Me Down, Hyland's last novel. In fairness to the book it is called This Is How and not This Is Why but the characters motivation for the act of violence he commits (I'm trying not to give too much away here) seems a little forced. Are we supposed to read that this was the result of building tension in his life or an act that any of us could commit. Neither seems very convincing. There is an obvious parallel between This Is How and Camus' L'Étranger which is clearly intentional but I must admit to being unsure of what Hyland's motives were for revisiting, updating, that text. Camus too, is more successful at summing up the universal. Perhaps Hyland is seeking to say this is not universal but personal. As I say, I don't know. The novel won't let you in enough to find out.Least successful of all was part two, Patrick's description of his incarceration. Part one left me with no interest in the protagonist, and no interest in his story. I didn't care. I had no interest in reading on. The novel's conclusion deserved a better novel preceding it. It is interesting that most of the press reviews tell of feeling great sympathy for Patrick because this doesn't seem to be reflected in the reviews I have read so far on Library Thing. Perhaps we just aren't a very sympathetic lot.Having said all this, I will probably return to Hyland at some point. She is a good writer and I would recommend Carry Me Down. This Is How has been long-listed for the Orange Prize too, so I am probably not in the majority in thinking it a fairly flimsy work.
    • 4/5
       When his fiancée breaks up with him, Patrick leaves his family home in the Midlands and moves to a small seaside town, where he has arranged a job as a mechanic and accommodation in a guest house. Patrick is intelligent but feels isolated, from his family and the people he meet in this new town, and it soon becomes clear that moving is not going to be the new start he hoped it would be.The novel is split into two parts, both written in the first person from Patrick’s perspective. The first part deals with Patrick’s attempt at creating a new life for himself in the seaside town. The blurb on the cover informs us that he will commit an act of violence, but even without this warning the tension is palpable through this first section. The tension becomes almost unbearable as you know that something bad is going to happen, it is just a matter of what and when. The actual act itself is brief, almost an anticlimax, but clearly illustrates the point that a single action can have long-reaching and devastating effects.The second part of the book looks at the consequences of his actions, which I won’t describe as that may count as spoiling the plot. However, I will say that it is not a happy outcome, there is no happy ending and the story gets bleaker by the page. Patrick is a strange narrator – despite everything being from his point of view, the reader never really gets a sense of knowing him. But although he has committed a terrible act, I also found it hard to dislike him and I did feel for him. As it is from his perspective, the writing style is very simple, with a lot of dialogue, which makes it a surprisingly easy read given the bleak subject matter. It would be difficult to say that I enjoyed this book but I was completely enthralled by it (like watching a car crash!), but I will certainly try another book by this author.
    • 4/5
      I am still not sure how I feel about this book.The first half is written in the first person narration of Patrick Oxtoby, a repressed, distant, university drop out who has no relationship with his family. His fiance has just left him and he goes to a small seaside town in England for work as a car mechanic. He lives in a boarding house with two other men, and the landlady Bridget. Told is a sufficating and claustrophobic voice, Patrick resembles other Hyland's characters: he hates to be touched, doesn't quite fit it, is not quite a member of this world, almost seems as though he has a disassociative disorder.The second part, when Patrick finds himself in jail is just sad and depressing. The book is very dialogue heavy and is almost hyperrealized. The problem I have with this book, I have with Hyland's other books - the characters offer very little motivation for their actions, and I find it very hard to feel empathy with them. They are just not very likable characters (esp. How the Light Gets In) and so, although it is a quick and interesting read, the jury is still out.
    • 4/5
      Patrick Oxtoby is the main character who after a breakup with his girlfriend leaves home and moves to a boarding house to begin a new job as a car mechanic. He is an odd character and you get the feeling he suffering a personality disorder although this is never made clear. He is quite the loner and finds it hard to relate to people especially his parents and a surprise visit from his mother unsettles him greatly. He forms an attachment to the woman who runs the boarding house and his associations with other boarders becomes tense. Tension escalates one day and he commits an act that has serious repercussions and lands him in prison. Hyland does well to get inside the head of this man and even though you know he is guilty you cannot help but feel he is not a bad person , just someone who is misunderstood and reacted in the only way he knows how.....which leads to the aptly named title of the novel. It is funny but when I read this my first reaction was just an ok read but after the First Tuesday Bookclub discussed the novel last month I came to view it more positively.
    • 4/5
      The story of a young man who leaves his home for an English seaside town where he has found a job doing what he loves--working as a mechanic. He has just split up with his fiance and leaves his family home to find his way in the world on his own. He can't express his feelings very well, and this leads to frustration and to his undoing.
    • 4/5
      Patrick Oxtoby is a strange and somewhat troubled young man. He's always lived in the shadow of his older brother, who's always happy and accepting, whereas Patrick is the sort of person who manages to catch his new coat on a succession of nails - constantly getting it wrong, and subsequently being unhappy. He went to university but only managed a year before dropping out. He leaves home and goes to stay in a seaside guest house where he encounters a man named Welkin. Halfway through the book, Patrick commits a reckless and thoughtless crime which changes his life forever. He maintains that he didn't mean to do it and I felt the author was very convincing in putting across Patrick's confusion and inability to accept his crime. The second part of the book follows Patrick in prison. Whether intentional on the author's part or not, I did find some of this part of the book quite amusing. The story comes to a strange and abrupt end, and what I took from the ending was that Patrick had finally accepted his fate and what he had done. This was a riveting read throughout. It's narrated by Patrick himself and has a lot of dialogue and little description, making it an easy book to read. M.J. Hyland captures Patrick's feelings and frustrations perfectly and has provided a fascinating read in This is How.