Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn, a review from Times Literary Supplement by Christopher Tayler.
"Edward St Aubyn's first three novels, Never Mind (1992), Bad News (1992) and Some Hope (1994), tell the story of a young man trying to overcome his father's destructive emotional legacy while seeing all too clearly that his readiest weapons ? detachment, wit, psychological insight ? are inherited from the tainted paternal hoard. To complicate matters further, the young man, Patrick Melrose, grows up in a world of extreme poshness and wealth, which gives him all kinds of opportunities for high-end self-destruction while making questions of inheritance and the family legacy even more intractable." Read the entire TLS review.