Sarbande, 5 November 2020
Pb, 9.99
How would any of us feel if we could meet our teenage selves, a ghost on the road?
Everything Passes, Everything Remains is a confluence of journeys, made by Chris Dolan, his friends, and writers before him. It's a bit about cycling, a bit about walking, and a bit about buses. It's a kind of travelogue, over time, and through some lesser-known parts of Spain. It's an obsession with Spain's writers and its history, from the Inquisition to the Civil War to the questions it faces as a country today. What makes a nation, or a family for that matter, or a group of friends? In many ways it's as much about Scotland and the UK as Spain.
But mostly it's about growing up and growing older-how the past plays merry hell with the present. About friendship, loss, music, writing. And it's about memory, and the tricks it plays.
'The warmth of friendship and wanderlust of retirement, making good on decades of dreaming Everything Passes, Everything Remains is brilliantly relatable, a personal journey shared candidly, painting a vivid picture of Spain with self-deprecating Scottish humour.' --Mark Beaumont
'Magical. A story for our times and what it is to be alive now.' Elaine C Smith
'Everything Passes, Everything Remains is the multi-talented Dolan's My Back Pages: a rich, evocative ramble through Spain, history and memory. It s a constant delight.' Graeme Macrae Burnet