This is How

Patrick is a loner. An intelligent but disturbed young man struggling to find his place in the world. He ventures out on his own and as he begins to find happiness commits an act of violence that sends his life horribly and irreversibly out of control. But should a person’s life be judged by a single bad act? This is How is a compelling and macabre journey into the dark side of human existence and a powerful meditation on the nature of guilt and redemption.

Reviews of This is How

'Darkly, sparsely, and with sustained intensity, Hyland constructs the montage of a killer … a dash of Camus's Meursault is added to the pathology … She writes intelligently about her subject's growing institutionalization, his bafflement growing into boredom then safety as Patrick gradually finds a kind of happiness inside … From within these shady borderlands Hyland has produced a memorable study.' Times Literary Supplement