Patrick Melrose Books In Publication Order
- Bad News (1992)
- Never Mind (1992)
- Some Hope (1994)
- Mother’s Milk (2005)
- At Last (2011)
- The Patrick Melrose Novels (2012)
Patrick Melrose Book Covers
Patrick Melrose Books Overview
Bad News
Set among the vertiginous contrasts of luxury and squalor which characterize New York City, this second volume of a trilogy is a harrowing but also humorous portrait of obsessive drug use. It is the sequel to ‘Never Mind’, which won a Betty Trask Award.
Never Mind
Dr Melrose, wealthy, cynical, utterly selfish, dominates the life of his small family in the South of France. His wife Eleanor drinks to get away from the misery of his tyranny and his five year old son Patrick dices with death on the edge of the chateau’s well.
Some Hope
Some Hope marks the U.S. debut of Edward St. Aubyn, highly acclaimed in the United Kingdom as one of the most original, intelligent, and acerbically witty voices of our time. From Provence to New York to Gloucestershire, through the savageries of a childhood with a tyrannical father and an alcoholic mother, to a young adulthood fraught with dissolute behavior, we follow Patrick Melrose’s search for redemption amid a crowd of glittering social dragonflies whose vapidity is the subject of his most stinging and memorable barbs. At once hilarious and deeply moving, Some Hope originally published in England as three separate novels is a stunningly authentic depiction of a man’s journey to and from the farthest limits of the human gamut.
Mother’s Milk
Writing with the scathing wit and bright perceptiveness for which he has become known, celebrated English author Edward St. Aubyn creates a complex family portrait that examines the shifting allegiances between mothers, sons, and husbands. The novel’s perspective ricochets among all members of the Melrose family the family featured in St. Aubyn s widely praised trilogy, Some Hope starting with Robert, who provides an exceptionally droll and convincing account of being born; to Patrick, a hilariously churlish husband who has been sexually abandoned by his wife in favor of his sons; to Mary, who s consumed by her children and overwhelming desire not to repeat the mistakes of her own mother. All the while, St. Aubyn examines the web of false promises that entangle this once illustrious family whose last vestige of wealth, an old house in the south of France is about to be donated by Patrick s mother to a New Age foundation. An up to the minute dissection of the mores of child rearing, marriage, adultery, and assisted suicide, Mother s Milk showcases St. Aubyn s luminous and acidic prose and his masterful ability to combine the most excruciating emotional pain with the driest comedy.
At Last
For Patrick Melrose, family is more than a double edged sword. As friends, relatives and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor an heiress who gave up the grandeur of her upbringing for good works, freely bestowed on everyone but her own child Patrick finds that his transition to orphanhood may not be the liberation he had so long imagined. Yet as the service ends and the family gathers for a final party, as conversations are overheard, danced around and concertedly avoided, amidst the social niceties and social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current. At the end of the day, alone in his rooftop bedsit, it seems to promise some form of safety, At Last. A powerful reflection on pain, acceptance, and the treacheries of family, At Last is the stunning culmination of the Melrose books, a work of glittering dark comedy and profound emotional truth.
The Patrick Melrose Novels
For more than twenty years, acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has chronicled the life of Patrick Melrose, painting an acrid portrait of the beleaguered and self loathing world of privilege. This single volume collects the first four novels Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother’s Milk, a Man Booker finalist to coincide with the publication of At Last, the final installment of this unique novel cycle. By turns harrowing and hilarious, these beautifully written novels dissect the English upper class as we follow Patrick Melrose s story from child abuse to hero*in addiction and recovery. Never Mind, the first novel, unfolds over a day and an evening at the family s chateaux in the south of France, where the sad*istic and terrifying figure of David Melrose dominates the lives of his five year old son, Patrick, and his rich and unhappy American mother, Eleanor. From abuse to addiction, the second novel, Bad News opens as the twenty two year old Patrick sets off to collect his father s ashes from New York, where he will spend a drug crazed twenty four hours. And back in England, the third novel, Some Hope, offers a sober and clean Patrick the possibility of recovery. The fourth novel, the Booker shortlisted Mother s Milk, returns to the family chateau, where Patrick, now married and a father himself, struggles with child rearing, adultery, his mother s desire for assisted suicide, and the loss of the family home to a New Age foundation. Edward St. Aubyn offers a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty welcome to the declining British aristocracy.