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Messy and Unpredictable
The Last Revision follows a man reflecting on his life as he navigates present-day physical limitations while revisiting vivid memories of childhood, family, romance, art, work, Buddhist practice, and life in New York City. What inspired you to structure the story around these reflections?
The structure of the book came from an intersection of three things. First, I was approaching my sixtieth birthday and was having a hard time of it, unlike approaching my 50th, which I relished and celebrated. At sixty, I was asking myself, “What happened? What’s left?” and I was fearful of forgetting, as I entered my third act. So, I wanted to write everything down before I forgot. In fact, I didn’t set out to write a memoir at all. It was an exercise in documentation. Secondly, I had always said I wanted to live to be a hundred years old, to see a century — how amazing would that be?! And lastly, my sister, author Patience Bloom, encouraged me to join the NaNoWriMo challenge (i.e., write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November). With that deadline looming, an idea popped into my head: a “memoir hypothesis.” Tell my story from the end of my life, from 100 years old. So, everything to 60 years old is true. Or mostly, as memory is imperfect. The rest is speculation. The original idea was to have two timelines intersecting. Chapter 1 would be the end, at 100. Chapter 2 would be the very early years. Chapter 3 would be somewhere in the early 90s, and so on until the timelines intersected. But somewhere along the way, like memory does, my mind drifted here and there, to the “present” and backward and then sideways. The title, The Last Revision, is the main character’s (and my) attempt to concretize what Bill remembers.
The novel explores LGBTQ+ identity across different periods of social change. How did you approach portraying the fears, challenges, and freedoms that shaped Bill’s life?
Because this is partially a work of auto-fiction, many of the experiences are my own — I didn’t have to research them. From being bullied as a child to feeling society’s tacit (or not so tacit) disapproval of anyone across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, there is a wealth of material to draw from. Anyone who has felt “different” from an early age carries those feelings with them, and it is important to know them and grapple with them so that one can live freely in the world. I imagined that, based on Bill’s (my) own experiences as a young and subsequently middle-aged person, Bill wouldn’t become truly fearless and comfortable in his own skin until later in life, which he does. I’ll also add that writing this book further helped me in my own journey of living freely in the world. I mean, I’m an out gay man, but with the publishing of this book, I’m really out.
Bill’s relationship with Andres is one of the emotional anchors of the novel. What did you want to explore about love, vulnerability, and the process of allowing oneself to be fully seen?
I wanted to explore the ups and downs of a relationship, of a marriage. We see so many stories on TV and in films in which relationships are one thing, good or bad, or they are good, then bad, then amazing. But it’s not that simple. Relationships can be incredibly challenging, inspiring, infuriating, titillating, moving, comforting, scary, and beautiful — all at the same time. They are messy and unpredictable, and ultimately rewarding. I wanted to show that one can — one has to — be oneself in a relationship, in a marriage, and that good things come from actively working on this.
What message do you hope readers carry with them after spending time with Bill?
My hope is that readers will feel seen in some way. Bill goes through many, many ups and downs throughout his long life, but he never gives up. As a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism with SGI for nearly 40 years, I embrace our motto to “never be defeated.” This doesn’t mean that we won’t have disappointments or that we will get everything we want. Rather, the goal is to never let one’s spirit be defeated, to never lose hope for the future, no matter what happens. If The Last Revision can instill an iota of this hope in a reader, I will be very, very happy.
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His journal.
And the memories begin.
The Last Revision moves through an entire life—from an Easter morning in upstate New York, through childhood moves across continents, a hard-won coming out, years of solitude in a New York City studio apartment, a late and lasting love, and a world that slowly, then all at once, changes beyond recognition. Bill has lived all of it. And on the eve of his hundredth birthday, he is finally willing to look.
Written from the imagined perspective of a man forty years older than the author, the novel blends lived memory with an invented future—reconstructing the past as it was, and imagining what might come after. The result is a life seen whole: remembered, revised, and, at last, understood.
At once intimate and expansive, The Last Revision is a novel about what it feels like to hold a life in your hands all at once—the losses and the luck, the curtain calls and the heartbreaks—and discover, with something close to astonishment, that it was a joy.
The Last Revision: A Novel
Patrick Smith’s The Last Revision is a reflective, deeply personal novel about memory, aging, love, grief, creativity, and the uncertain future waiting for humanity. The narrator, Bill, looks back over a century of life from a care residence, moving between his present-day physical limitations and vivid memories of childhood, family, romance, work, art, Buddhist practice, and life in New York City. Smith describes the book as a “memoir hypothesis,” and that’s an apt label. This book blends autobiographical fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction, and climate fiction into an intimate portrait of one person trying to understand what his life has added up to.
The novel unfolds through thirty-three themed chapters. A wheelchair, a photograph, a song, a visitor, or a physical sensation can send Bill into a memory spanning decades. His recollections include childhood accidents, boarding school, running the New York City Marathon, training as a massage therapist, returning to acting later in life, and building a marriage with Andres. These transitions give the story the loose, associative rhythm of an actual mind looking backward. Bill’s voice is conversational, opinionated, funny, and occasionally irritable, which keeps the book from becoming overly solemn.
The novel is at its strongest when Bill considers the people who encouraged him and the small decisions that gave his life meaning. Teachers, friends, family members, artistic mentors, and Buddhist leaders continue to shape him long after they’re gone. His relationship with Andres provides the emotional center, particularly as Bill remembers learning to express affection openly after years of fear and internalized shame. One sentence captures the philosophy running through the book: “Take care of the person right in front of you.” Smith returns repeatedly to the idea that a worthwhile life is built through attention, encouragement, dialogue, and the willingness to keep participating in the world.
Readers who enjoyed Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie will recognize a similar interest in aging, mortality, relationships, and the lessons that become clearer near the end of life. Smith’s novel, however, covers a broader and more idiosyncratic landscape. It mixes personal recollection with an imagined future shaped by climate disaster, political instability, technological change, and war. The result feels like a memoir viewed through a speculative lens. Its ideal audience includes readers of character-driven literary fiction, autobiographical novels, LGBTQ+ historical fiction, Buddhist fiction, novels about aging, and near-future climate fiction. It will especially appeal to people who enjoy reflective storytelling more than fast-moving suspense.
The Last Revision is ultimately a warm, candid examination of what remains when careers end, bodies weaken, loved ones die, and memory begins rearranging the past. Smith finds meaning in creative work, hard conversations, enduring love, and moments of physical freedom, including the simple pleasure of swinging through the air on Bill’s hundredth birthday. The novel’s episodic structure asks readers to settle into Bill’s company and listen as one memory opens into another. By the final pages, his life feels neither polished nor reduced to a tidy lesson. It feels fully inhabited, filled with regret, humor, affection, conviction, and a stubborn readiness to greet one more day.
Pages: 210 | ASIN : B0GZJH4M7R
