BOFF WHALLEY’S NEW book But: Life Isn’t Like That, Is It? has been published today (18 February) by PM Press, a fortnight ahead of the start of a UK book tour.
The book is a collection of life stories, “personal and impersonal, historical and contemporary”, which are “punctuated by disruption, derailment, and digression.”
Life’s stories are always prone to disruption and digression, thwarting the neat storybook narrative we love so much.
Almost all of our stories follow the same basic pattern: beginning, middle, end: exposition, action, and climax. It’s a neat and tidy way of telling a story. But life’s not like that, is it? It doesn’t obey the rules. Life’s stories—like the stories told here in But, personal and impersonal, historical and contemporary—are punctuated by disruption, derailment, and digression.
Stories where the good guys lose. Stories where the bad girls win. Stories that just stop in the middle. Stories that fizzle out or simply never get going. Stories that don’t make sense. Stories that start where they should end and end where they start. Stories that go round in a cyclical loop, forever. Unfinished stories. Unstarted stories. Stories that stutter and mumble, that cough and splutter.
That’s what we have here in this book: real stories, that do all of the above. That’s why this book is called But. Because the but is there to disrupt the easy normality of the way we tell our stories. This book is a collection of stories about real lives, real people, and real life. Stuttering, wayward, disjointed, funny, ridiculous, and unplanned.
— PM Press
To promote the book, Boff will be heading out on a UK book tour, beginning in Sunderland on 4 March and concluding in Farsley on 18 March. The UK tour will be followed by appearances in the US, beginning in New York on 23 March and ending in Seattle on 16 April.
I’ll be travelling around with a suitcase full of books… and an old guitar, visiting bookshops and venues – starting in the UK before heading over to the US.
It would be lovely to have you as an audience for these small events, since part of the thing will be having a conversation / Q & A about whatever you fancy talking about.
I’ve been to lots of book readings and I’m usually struck by the formality of it all – so hopefully these events won’t be like that, they’ll be loose and entertaining. I will bring jokes to fill the silences.
— Boff Whalley
Advance tickets for all UK and US dates (where advance booking is required) are available through the tour listings on Boff Whalley‘s site.
Boff Whalley. 2025. But: Life Isn’t Like That, Is It?. Oakland: PM Press. 979-8-88744-089-7 / 979-8-88744-091-0. https://pmpress.org.uk/product/but-life-isnt-like-that-is-it/
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