The Patrick Melrose Novels, Edward St. Aubyn
The Patrick Melrose Novels, Edward St. Aubyn
List: $44.99 | Sale: $31.50
Club: $22.49

The Patrick Melrose Novels
Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk

Author: Edward St. Aubyn

Narrator: Alex Jennings

Unabridged: 21 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/10/2013


Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An Atlantic Magazine Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

"The Melrose Novels are a masterwork for the twenty-first century, written by one of the great prose stylists in England." a€”Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely BonesFor more than twenty years, acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has chronicled the life of Patrick Melrose, painting an extraordinary portrait of the beleaguered and self-loathing world of privilege. This single volume collects the first four novelsa€”Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk, a Man Booker finalista€”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 heroin 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 sadistic 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 crueltya€”welcome to the declining British aristocracy.

About Edward St. Aubyn

Edward St. Aubyn was born in London. His acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels are Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk (winner of the Prix Femina étranger and short-listed for the Man Booker Prize), and At Last. The series was made into a BAFTA Award–winning Sky Atlantic TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. St. Aubyn is also the author of A Clue to the Exit, On the Edge (short-listed for the Guardian Fiction Prize), Lost for Words (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), and Dunbar, his reimagining of King Lear for the Hogarth Shakespeare project.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Steve on September 29, 2015

Investors talk often about risk-return tradeoffs. The more volatile an asset is, the higher the expected return has to be to want to hold it. The four short books packaged together as The Patrick Melrose Novels are at the extreme end of the risk-return spectrum. Edward St. Aubyn took big chances hop......more

Goodreads review by Christian on August 01, 2012

The most fun I've ever had reading about incest, heroin addiction, narcissism, cruelty and dementia. The blackest of comedies, written in beautiful, elegant prose, with razor-sharp dialog and heartbreaking, finely-drawn characters. If, like me, you can't imagine enjoying yet another book about decad......more

Goodreads review by Bram on February 02, 2013

Each of these novels is like a high-end entrée: exquisite and varied in flavor, yet unable on its own to satisfy the appetite. But together they provide complete satiation and not a hint of surfeit. St. Aubyn's sharp and justly-lauded prose is addicting; he manages to craft a story of the leading ma......more

Goodreads review by Lee on February 07, 2017

An unprecedented reading experience: 5-4-3-2-1. A tetralogy descending from audacious LOL greatness to who cares I think I'm gonna skim it. Of course I've read novels that started really strong and fizzled but never have they fizzled so evenly, their fizzle delineated by individually published volum......more

Goodreads review by Lauren on May 01, 2012

I just began reading this collection of the first four books in the quintet of Patrick Melrose books, and I am STUNNED by what an amazing writer St. Aubyn is. Every paragraph contains a gem, and his characterizations are brilliant, as is his character development... and the way he handles the heavie......more