Synopses & Reviews
A New York Times Notable Book of 2012
One of The Telegraphs Best Fiction Books 2011
“On every page of St. Aubyns work is a sentence or a paragraph that prompts a laugh, or a moment of enriched comprehension.” —James Wood, The New Yorker
Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as “our purest living prose stylist” and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called “the most brilliant English novelist of his generation,” is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.
As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk—are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, “family” has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An Americam heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for “good works” freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined.
The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety. . . at last.
Review
“ . . . one of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade. After all the suffering and torment and despair that Patrick Melrose has been through over the years, [St. Aubyn] leaves him in a very interesting place, and he does it all with his incredible examination of the sweep of time and the way our understanding of people changes over decades. All of that is done with this incredible, biting, witty, hilarious prose style, the elegant, classic English sentences that he writes and these amazing put-downs, and he's great at dissecting an entire social world with a really wicked scalpel.” —Michael Chabon,
The Los Angeles Times “Remarkable . . . In order to understand what makes these novels so exceptional, its better to open any one of them at random, marveling at the precise observations and glistening turns of phrase, not to mention dialogue witty enough to make our own most clever conversations sound like . . . well, like St. Aubyns Princess Margaret.” —Francine Prose,
The New York Times Book Review “[
At Last] offers up everything that one could hope for in a good novel.” —Christopher A. Gellert,
The Washington Square New “St. Aubyns skill with characterization, his dissection of how a personality warps, settles, or improves over time, is nowhere more evident than in his aging of Patrick, whose mood and mental state are a gauge for the tone of each novel. . .
At Last is far less dramatic than any previous Melrose book, although the humor and perfectly observed dialogue remain. Its calm is entirely suited to the wisdom Patrick Melrose has painfully, finally earned.” —Victoria Beale,
The New Republic “St. Aubyn writes with exquisite control and a brilliant comic touch. . . An intelligent and surprisingly hopeful novel, a fitting conclusion to one of the best fictional cycles in contemporary fiction.” —Anthony Domestico,
The Boston Globe “You have to drill down pretty far and pretty mercilessly to get to the vulnerable, human soul of someone like Patrick. But St. Aubyn does, and he mines extraordinary amounts of humor and pathos out of Patrick's thin, bedraggled life. . . St. Aubyn's prose recalls Virginia Woolf's; it has the same combination of lyricism and precision.” —Lev Grossman,
Time “Piercing. . . Mr. St. Aubyn shares Patrick's gift for observation, and his radar for pictorial and emotional detail enables him to capture just about anything in his pointillist prose.” —Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times “On every page of St. Aubyn's work is a sentence or a paragraph that prompts a laugh, or a moment of enriched comprehension.” —James Wood,
The New Yorker “Delightfully packed with gross privilege, dysfunction, and savage humor.” —Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn,
The Paris Review (staff pick) “St. Aubyn's humor and elegance transform harrowing subject matter into irresistible prose.” —Maura Egan,
W Magazine “With lacerating humor and razor sharp imagery, St. Aubyn continues to work out his themes: the follies of the British upper class, the 'psychological impact of inherited wealth,' the complex dynamics between parent and child.” —Mary Ellen Quinn,
Booklist “Stunning, sparkling fiction. . . Deeply affecting.” —Sam Sacks,
The Wall Street Journal “It's tough competition for the most-underrated writer in the English language—there's plenty of neglect to go around — but if you put a Colt Commander to my head (see below) I might well say it's St. Aubyn, the chronically under-published chronicler of abuse, dysfunction, alcoholism and worse in the English upper classes.
At Last is the final novel, one thinks, in his series about his alter ego, the neurotic Patrick Melrose. It's pretty much a lock to be one of the funniest, saddest, most beautiful books of the year.” —Lev Grossman,
Time “The Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn are a masterwork for the 21st century. Written by one of our greatest English prose stylists, they present a cornucopia of humor, pathos, razor sharp judgment, pain, joy, and everything in between.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
“Sparkling . . . With the wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse, and the waspishness of Waugh, [St. Aubyn] wraps his fancy prose style around the self in extremis (“suffocated, dropped, born of raped as well as born to be raped”), situations more familiar to readers of Cooper or Burroughs.” —Zadie Smith, Harper's
“A miraculously wrought piece of art.” —Suzi Feay, The Financial Times
“St. Aubyns technique is to crystallise emotional intensity into sentences of arctic beauty, which can be caustically witty or brutal. His novels are uncommonly well controlled, and thus their impact is all the more powerful… In At Last this crystallisation and control are on glittering display…We have reached the pinnacle of a series that has plunged into darkness and risen towards light. At Last is both resounding end and hopeful beginning.” —Philip Womack, The Telegraph
“Ferociously funny, painfully acute and exhilaratingly written. . . Brimming with witty flair, sardonic perceptiveness and literary finesse.”—Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times
“The thing that everyone loves about this man . . . is that his prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect. As a sketcher of character, his wit — whether turned against pointless members of the aristocracy or hopeless crack dealers — is ticklingly wicked. As an analyser of broken minds and tired hearts he is as energetic, careful and creative as the perfect shrink. And when it comes to spinning a good yarn, whether over the grand scale of three volumes or within a single page of anecdote, he has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat . . . [An] amazing book.”— Melissa Katsoulis, The Times
Review
"When I read St. Aubyn Im floored over and over again by the warmth and intelligence and eloquence of his work….Gorgeous, golden prose."---Lev Grossman, Time "Remarkable…Written with an utterly idiosyncratic combination of emotional precision, crystalline observation, and black humor…Affecting, alarming, and, yes, amusing, all at the same time."---Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Sparkling…Nothing about the plots can prepare you for the rich, acerbic comedy of St. Aubyns world."---Zadie Smith, Harpers Magazine "On every page of St. Aubyns work is a sentence or a paragraph that prompts a laugh, or a moment of enriched comprehension."---James Wood, The New Yorker "Like Waugh, St. Aubyn writes with exquisite control and a brilliant comic touch.…A fitting conclusion to one of the best fictional cycles in contemporary fiction."---The Boston Globe
"Beautifully wrought...Brutally funny and sad."---Vanity Fair
"The Melrose novels are among the smartest and most beautiful fictional achievements of the past twenty years."---The New York Observer
Review
"When I read St. Aubyn Im floored over and over again by the warmth and intelligence and eloquence of his work….Gorgeous, golden prose."---Lev Grossman,
Time "Remarkable…Written with an utterly idiosyncratic combination of emotional precision, crystalline observation, and black humor…Affecting, alarming, and, yes, amusing, all at the same time."---Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Sparkling…Nothing about the plots can prepare you for the rich, acerbic comedy of St. Aubyns world."---Zadie Smith, Harpers Magazine
"On every page of St. Aubyns work is a sentence or a paragraph that prompts a laugh, or a moment of enriched comprehension."---James Wood, The New Yorker
"Like Waugh, St. Aubyn writes with exquisite control and a brilliant comic touch.…A fitting conclusion to one of the best fictional cycles in contemporary fiction."---The Boston Globe
"Beautifully wrought...Brutally funny and sad."---Vanity Fair
"The Melrose novels are among the smartest and most beautiful fictional achievements of the past twenty years."---The New York Observer
Review
“ . . . one of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade. After all the suffering and torment and despair that Patrick Melrose has been through over the years, [St. Aubyn] leaves him in a very interesting place, and he does it all with his incredible examination of the sweep of time and the way our understanding of people changes over decades. All of that is done with this incredible, biting, witty, hilarious prose style, the elegant, classic English sentences that he writes and these amazing put-downs, and he's great at dissecting an entire social world with a really wicked scalpel.” —Michael Chabon,
The Los Angeles Times “Remarkable . . . In order to understand what makes these novels so exceptional, its better to open any one of them at random, marveling at the precise observations and glistening turns of phrase, not to mention dialogue witty enough to make our own most clever conversations sound like . . . well, like St. Aubyns Princess Margaret.” —Francine Prose,
The New York Times Book Review “[
At Last] offers up everything that one could hope for in a good novel.” —Christopher A. Gellert,
The Washington Square New “St. Aubyns skill with characterization, his dissection of how a personality warps, settles, or improves over time, is nowhere more evident than in his aging of Patrick, whose mood and mental state are a gauge for the tone of each novel. . .
At Last is far less dramatic than any previous Melrose book, although the humor and perfectly observed dialogue remain. Its calm is entirely suited to the wisdom Patrick Melrose has painfully, finally earned.” —Victoria Beale,
The New Republic “St. Aubyn writes with exquisite control and a brilliant comic touch. . . An intelligent and surprisingly hopeful novel, a fitting conclusion to one of the best fictional cycles in contemporary fiction.” —Anthony Domestico,
The Boston Globe “You have to drill down pretty far and pretty mercilessly to get to the vulnerable, human soul of someone like Patrick. But St. Aubyn does, and he mines extraordinary amounts of humor and pathos out of Patrick's thin, bedraggled life. . . St. Aubyn's prose recalls Virginia Woolf's; it has the same combination of lyricism and precision.” —Lev Grossman,
Time “Piercing. . . Mr. St. Aubyn shares Patrick's gift for observation, and his radar for pictorial and emotional detail enables him to capture just about anything in his pointillist prose.” —Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times “On every page of St. Aubyn's work is a sentence or a paragraph that prompts a laugh, or a moment of enriched comprehension.” —James Wood,
The New Yorker “Delightfully packed with gross privilege, dysfunction, and savage humor.” —Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn,
The Paris Review (staff pick) “St. Aubyn's humor and elegance transform harrowing subject matter into irresistible prose.” —Maura Egan,
W Magazine “With lacerating humor and razor sharp imagery, St. Aubyn continues to work out his themes: the follies of the British upper class, the 'psychological impact of inherited wealth,' the complex dynamics between parent and child.” —Mary Ellen Quinn,
Booklist “Stunning, sparkling fiction. . . Deeply affecting.” —Sam Sacks,
The Wall Street Journal “It's tough competition for the most-underrated writer in the English language—there's plenty of neglect to go around — but if you put a Colt Commander to my head (see below) I might well say it's St. Aubyn, the chronically under-published chronicler of abuse, dysfunction, alcoholism and worse in the English upper classes.
At Last is the final novel, one thinks, in his series about his alter ego, the neurotic Patrick Melrose. It's pretty much a lock to be one of the funniest, saddest, most beautiful books of the year.” —Lev Grossman,
Time “The Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn are a masterwork for the 21st century. Written by one of our greatest English prose stylists, they present a cornucopia of humor, pathos, razor sharp judgment, pain, joy, and everything in between.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
“Sparkling . . . With the wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse, and the waspishness of Waugh, [St. Aubyn] wraps his fancy prose style around the self in extremis (“suffocated, dropped, born of raped as well as born to be raped”), situations more familiar to readers of Cooper or Burroughs.” —Zadie Smith, Harper's
“A miraculously wrought piece of art.” —Suzi Feay, The Financial Times
“St. Aubyns technique is to crystallise emotional intensity into sentences of arctic beauty, which can be caustically witty or brutal. His novels are uncommonly well controlled, and thus their impact is all the more powerful… In At Last this crystallisation and control are on glittering display…We have reached the pinnacle of a series that has plunged into darkness and risen towards light. At Last is both resounding end and hopeful beginning.” —Philip Womack, The Telegraph
“Ferociously funny, painfully acute and exhilaratingly written. . . Brimming with witty flair, sardonic perceptiveness and literary finesse.”—Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times
“The thing that everyone loves about this man . . . is that his prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect. As a sketcher of character, his wit — whether turned against pointless members of the aristocracy or hopeless crack dealers — is ticklingly wicked. As an analyser of broken minds and tired hearts he is as energetic, careful and creative as the perfect shrink. And when it comes to spinning a good yarn, whether over the grand scale of three volumes or within a single page of anecdote, he has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat . . . [An] amazing book.”— Melissa Katsoulis, The Times
Review
“ . . . one of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade. After all the suffering and torment and despair that Patrick Melrose has been through over the years, [St. Aubyn] leaves him in a very interesting place, and he does it all with his incredible examination of the sweep of time and the way our understanding of people changes over decades. All of that is done with this incredible, biting, witty, hilarious prose style, the elegant, classic English sentences that he writes and these amazing put-downs, and he's great at dissecting an entire social world with a really wicked scalpel.” —Michael Chabon,
The Los Angeles Times “Remarkable . . . In order to understand what makes these novels so exceptional, its better to open any one of them at random, marveling at the precise observations and glistening turns of phrase, not to mention dialogue witty enough to make our own most clever conversations sound like . . . well, like St. Aubyns Princess Margaret.” —Francine Prose,
The New York Times Book Review “[
At Last] offers up everything that one could hope for in a good novel.” —Christopher A. Gellert,
The Washington Square New “St. Aubyns skill with characterization, his dissection of how a personality warps, settles, or improves over time, is nowhere more evident than in his aging of Patrick, whose mood and mental state are a gauge for the tone of each novel. . .
At Last is far less dramatic than any previous Melrose book, although the humor and perfectly observed dialogue remain. Its calm is entirely suited to the wisdom Patrick Melrose has painfully, finally earned.” —Victoria Beale,
The New Republic “St. Aubyn writes with exquisite control and a brilliant comic touch. . . An intelligent and surprisingly hopeful novel, a fitting conclusion to one of the best fictional cycles in contemporary fiction.” —Anthony Domestico,
The Boston Globe “You have to drill down pretty far and pretty mercilessly to get to the vulnerable, human soul of someone like Patrick. But St. Aubyn does, and he mines extraordinary amounts of humor and pathos out of Patrick's thin, bedraggled life. . . St. Aubyn's prose recalls Virginia Woolf's; it has the same combination of lyricism and precision.” —Lev Grossman,
Time “Piercing. . . Mr. St. Aubyn shares Patrick's gift for observation, and his radar for pictorial and emotional detail enables him to capture just about anything in his pointillist prose.” —Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times “On every page of St. Aubyn's work is a sentence or a paragraph that prompts a laugh, or a moment of enriched comprehension.” —James Wood,
The New Yorker “Delightfully packed with gross privilege, dysfunction, and savage humor.” —Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn,
The Paris Review (staff pick) “St. Aubyn's humor and elegance transform harrowing subject matter into irresistible prose.” —Maura Egan,
W Magazine “With lacerating humor and razor sharp imagery, St. Aubyn continues to work out his themes: the follies of the British upper class, the 'psychological impact of inherited wealth,' the complex dynamics between parent and child.” —Mary Ellen Quinn,
Booklist “Stunning, sparkling fiction. . . Deeply affecting.” —Sam Sacks,
The Wall Street Journal “It's tough competition for the most-underrated writer in the English language—there's plenty of neglect to go around — but if you put a Colt Commander to my head (see below) I might well say it's St. Aubyn, the chronically under-published chronicler of abuse, dysfunction, alcoholism and worse in the English upper classes.
At Last is the final novel, one thinks, in his series about his alter ego, the neurotic Patrick Melrose. It's pretty much a lock to be one of the funniest, saddest, most beautiful books of the year.” —Lev Grossman,
Time “The Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn are a masterwork for the 21st century. Written by one of our greatest English prose stylists, they present a cornucopia of humor, pathos, razor sharp judgment, pain, joy, and everything in between.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
“Sparkling . . . With the wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse, and the waspishness of Waugh, [St. Aubyn] wraps his fancy prose style around the self in extremis (“suffocated, dropped, born of raped as well as born to be raped”), situations more familiar to readers of Cooper or Burroughs.” —Zadie Smith, Harper's
“A miraculously wrought piece of art.” —Suzi Feay, The Financial Times
“St. Aubyns technique is to crystallise emotional intensity into sentences of arctic beauty, which can be caustically witty or brutal. His novels are uncommonly well controlled, and thus their impact is all the more powerful… In At Last this crystallisation and control are on glittering display…We have reached the pinnacle of a series that has plunged into darkness and risen towards light. At Last is both resounding end and hopeful beginning.” —Philip Womack, The Telegraph
“Ferociously funny, painfully acute and exhilaratingly written. . . Brimming with witty flair, sardonic perceptiveness and literary finesse.”—Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times
“The thing that everyone loves about this man . . . is that his prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect. As a sketcher of character, his wit — whether turned against pointless members of the aristocracy or hopeless crack dealers — is ticklingly wicked. As an analyser of broken minds and tired hearts he is as energetic, careful and creative as the perfect shrink. And when it comes to spinning a good yarn, whether over the grand scale of three volumes or within a single page of anecdote, he has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat . . . [An] amazing book.”— Melissa Katsoulis, The Times
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of 2012
One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books 2011
One of Esquire's Best Books of 2012
One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2012
Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as our purest living prose stylist and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called the most brilliant English novelist of his generation, is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.
As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works--Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk--are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, family has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An American heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for good works freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined.
The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety. . . at last.
Synopsis
Now a 5-Part Limited Event Series on Showtime, Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Blythe Danner
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year - One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of the Year - Named One of the best books of the Year by The Telegraph and Esquire
Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as our purest living prose stylist and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called the most brilliant English novelist of his generation, is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.
As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works--Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk--are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, family has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An American heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for good works freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined.
The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety...at last.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of 2012
One of The Telegraphs Best Fiction Books 2011
One of Esquire's Best Books of 2012
One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2012
Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as “our purest living prose stylist” and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called “the most brilliant English novelist of his generation,” is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.
As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk—are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, “family” has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An American heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for “good works” freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined.
The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety. . . at last.
Synopsis
A New York Times Book Review Editors ChoiceFriends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to Patrick Melroses mother, Eleanor. An American heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for "good works" freely bestowed on everyone but her own son. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick anticipates his release from the extremes of his childhood—and wonders if it will be the liberation he has so long imagined.
At Last is the stunning culmination of the Patrick Melrose novels, one of the great literary enterprises of the past two decades. In the words of Alice Sebold, these novels are "a masterwork for the twenty-first century."
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of 2012
One of The Telegraphs Best Fiction Books 2011
Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as “our purest living prose stylist” and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called “the most brilliant English novelist of his generation,” is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.
As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk—are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, “family” has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An Americam heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for “good works” freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined.
The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety. . . at last.
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Time Magazine Best Book of the Year
An Esquire Best Book of Year
"Beautifully wrought . . . Brutally funny and sad."—Vanity Fair
Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as “our purest living prose stylist” and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called “the most brilliant English novelist of his generation,” is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.
As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk—are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, “family” has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An Americam heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for “good works” freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined.
The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety. . . at last.
About the Author
Edward St. Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He is the author of A Clue to the Exit and On the Edge; a series of novels about the Melrose family, including the trilogy Some Hope; and Mothers Milk, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.
Reading Group Guide
1. Edward St. Aubyn describes Patrick as being torn between the lure of consolation and the lure of disappointment. Why does he find those options alluring? What aspects of a powerful, albeit masochistic, bond are captured in the fact that he mourns not the loss of his mother but the loss of longing for closeness to her?
2. Why does Nicholas derive pleasure from being snarky? In the books opening scenes, was it fun or annoying to see him creating tension, on what should have been a somber occasion? At the end of the novel, do people react to his closing chapter with phoniness or candor?
3. Discuss Eleanors marriage to David and what we learn about it in this novel. Why was she unable to choose between being his collaborator and his antagonist when it came to raising Patrick?
4. Patrick contemplates Eleanors emotional legacy throughout her funeral. What legacies will he leave for Robert and Thomas? How is he able to break the cycle of his familys cruelty?
5. Discuss Annettes observations about Eleanors spiritual side, delivered in a fairly lengthy eulogy. How does Annettes depiction compare to other impressions of Eleanor? What would Eleanor have thought of these spiritual philosophies, and those that Erasmus continues to ponder throughout the service?
6. What does Nancys spending say about her memories of Jean, her stepfather? Why cant Nancy simply accept the reality of her situation? Why is the myth of endless wealth important for her to uphold?
7. St. Aubyn has spoken candidly with interviewers about the horrific incidents from his own life that inspired aspects of Patricks story, including being brutalized by his father and recovering from drug addiction. How does it affect your reading to know that the plot is partially autobiographical?
8. What makes St. Aubyn a master of the art of gallows humor? Why are morbid subjects and despicable people often the best material for comedy?
9. On page 262, the author describes Patrick as getting comfortable with Keatsian mysteries, finally open to questions that cant necessarily be answered. What questions in your life and legacy cant really be answered? How could you make peace with this uncertainty?
10. Discuss the authors notion that those who appear to deserve the most blame actually deserve the most help. When is this true in the novel, and in your own life?
11. Why was it easy for Eleanor to give charitably to strangers but not to her own family and staff? What does her generosity say about her personality? What were some of the most striking differences between her public and private personae?
12. How does the transatlantic connection enhance At Last? What is Patricks perspective on America, and how is his identity shaped by knowing about Eleanors grandfather Jonson? Why was Southern culture meaningful to Eleanor? Did her image of it extend very far beyond the stereotypes of Porgy and Bess?
13. In At Last, how do Patricks interactions with Mary, his wife, compare to his interactions with Julia, his former girlfriend? Is his attitude toward women different now that his mother is gone?
14. Discuss the transformations that Patrick has experienced in the Melrose novels you have read previously. He has evolved from anger and addiction to middle-age crises; what has he become in this final portrait?
Reading group guide written by Amy Clements / The Wordshop, Inc.
Also Available
The first four Patrick Melrose novels (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mothers Milk), collected in a single Picador paperback edition (ISBN 978-0-312-42996-6)