Edward St. Aubyn

NOW COLLECTED INTO ONE VOLUME FOR THE FIRST TIME, ALL FIVE INSTALLMENTS OF EDWARD ST. AUBYN'S CELEBRATED PATRICK MELROSE NOVELSNow a 5-Part Limited Event Series on Showtime, Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Blythe DannerEdward St. Aubyn has penned one of the most acclaimed series of the decade with the Patrick Melrose Novels. Now you can read all five novels in one volume: Never Mind, Bad News, Mother's Milk, Some Hope, and At Last.By turns harrowing and hilarious, this ambitious novel cycle dissects the English upper class. Edward St. Aubyn offers his reader the often darkly funny and self-loathing world of privilege as we follow Patrick Melrose's story of abuse, addiction, and recovery from the age of five into early middle age.The Patrick Melrose Novels are "a memorable tour de force" (The New York Times Book Review) by one of "the most brilliant English novelists of his generation" (Alan Hollinghurst).

A reimagining of one of Shakespeare's most well-read tragedies, by the contemporary, critically acclaimed master of domestic dramaHenry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he hands over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan, but as relations sour he starts to doubt the wisdom of past decisions.Now imprisoned in Meadowmeade, an upscale sanatorium in rural England, with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape. As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels. But who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate?Edward St Aubyn is renowned for his masterwork, the five Melrose novels, which dissect with savage and beautiful precision the agonies of family life. His take on King Lear, Shakespeare's most devastating family story, is an excoriating novel for and of our times - an examination of power, money and the value of forgiveness.

Never Mind, the first installment in Edward St. Aubyn's wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle, follows five-year-old Patrick through a single day, as the Melrose family awaits the arrival of guests. Bright and imaginative, young Patrick struggles daily to contend with the searing cruelty of his father and the resignation of his embattled mother. But on this day he must endure an unprecedented horror—one that splits his world in two. In Never Mind, St. Aubyn renders this vivid tragedy with profound grace and precision, and introduces us to the unforgettable, complex figure of Patrick Melrose.

Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father’s ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick’s remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge – desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past.Bad News was originally published, along with Never Mind and Some Hope, as part of a three book omnibus also called Some Hope.

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.

As friends, relatives and foes trickle in to pay their final respects to his mother Eleanor, Patrick Melrose finds himself questioning whether a life without parents will be the liberation he has so long imagined. Yet as the memorial service ends and the family gathers one last time, amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current: the chance of some form of safety – at last.

THE THIRD PATRICK MELROSE NOVEL Patrick Melrose, cleaned-up and world-weary, is a reluctant guest at a glittering party deep in the English countryside. Amid a crowd of flitting social dragonflies, he finds his search for redemption and capacity for forgiveness challenged by his observation of the cruelties around him. Armed with his biting wit and a newly fashioned openness, can Patrick, who has been to the furthest limits of experience and back again, find release from the savageries of his childhood? ‘A masterpiece. Edward St Aubyn is a writer of immense gifts’ Patrick McGrath ‘St Aubyn’s Melrose series slices and dices morality with prose so chiselled and a narrative so intense that the hairs on the back of your neck stand up’ Geordie Greig, Evening Standard ‘I’ve loved Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. Read them all, now’ David Nicholls ‘A memorable tour de force’ New York Times Book Review

Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic Patrick. Moving from Provence to New York to Gloucestershire, from the savageries of a childhood with a cruel father and an alcoholic mother to an adulthood fraught with addiction, Patrick Melrose is on a mission to escape himself. But the drugs don’t make him forget his past, and the glittering parties offer him no redemption . . . Searingly funny and deeply humane, Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in the Patrick Melrose series, Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope. Patrick Melrose Volume 2 is also available, containing the final two novels in the series, Mother’s Milk and At Last.

The judges on the panel of the Elysian Prize for Literature must get through hundreds of submissions to find the best book of the year. Meanwhile, a host of writers are desperate for Elysian attention: the brilliant writer and serial heartbreaker Katherine Burns; the lovelorn debut novelist Sam Black; and Bunjee, convinced that his magnum opus, The Mulberry Elephant, will take the literary world by storm. Things go terribly wrong when Katherine’s publisher accidentally submits a cookery book in place of her novel; one of the judges finds himself in the middle of a scandal; and Bunjee, aghast to learn his book isn’t on the short list, seeks revenge.Lost for Words is a witty, fabulously entertaining satire that cuts to the quick of some of the deepest questions about the place of art in our celebrity-obsessed culture, and asks how we can ever hope to recognize real talent when everyone has an agenda.

Double Blind follows three close friends and their circle through a year of extraordinary transformation. Set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur, and a rewilded corner of Sussex, this thrilling, ambitious novel is about the headlong pursuit of knowledge—for the purposes of pleasure, revelation, money, sanity, or survival—and the consequences of fleeing from what we know about others and ourselves. When Olivia meets a new lover just as she is welcoming her best friend, Lucy, back from New York, her dedicated academic life expands precipitously. Her connection to Francis, a committed naturalist living off the grid, is immediate and startling. Eager to involve Lucy in her joy, Olivia introduces the two—but Lucy has received shocking news of her own that binds the trio unusually close. Over the months that follow, Lucy’s boss, Hunter, Olivia’s psychoanalyst parents, and a young man named Sebastian are pulled into the friends’ orbit, and not one of them will emerge unchanged. Expansive, playful, and compassionate, Edward St. Aubyn's Double Blind investigates themes of inheritance, determinism, freedom, consciousness, and the stories we tell about ourselves. St. Aubyn's major new novel is as compelling about ecology, psychoanalysis, genetics, and neuroscience as it is about love, fear, and courage. Most of all, it is a perfect expression of the interconnections it sets out to examine, and a moving evocation of an imagined world that is deeply intelligent, often tender, curious, and very much alive.

Patrick Melrose Volume 2 contains the final two novels in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic Patrick. The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril, and Patrick Melrose, now a husband and father, is trying to gather together the pieces of his life. Caught up in the turmoil of broken promises, assisted suicide, adultery and – most tender and terrifying of all – fatherhood, Patrick is still a long way from salvation, but even as the family struggles against the pull of its dark past, a new generation promises new light, new hope and – perhaps – the promise of a brighter future. Deeply moving, hilarious and heartbreaking, Patrick Melrose Volume 2 contains the final two novels in the Patrick Melrose series: Mother’s Milk and At Last. Patrick Melrose Volume 1 is also available, containing the first three novels in the series, Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope.

Charlie Fairburn, successful screenwriter of Aliens with a Human Heart , ex-husband and absent father, has been given six months to live. He resolves to stake half his fortune on a couple of turns of the roulette wheel and, to his agent's disgust, to write a novel - about death. Set on a train, it involves a group of characters locked in a debate about the nature of consciousness. As the train gets stuck at Didcot Junction, Charlie becomes more passionately entangled with the dangerous young woman who is his nemesis.

Peter, a disaffected merchant banker in his mid-thirties, suffers a coup de foudre when he lays eyes on the delectable Sabine, and sets out on a reckless mission to track her down. His search takes him to some of the outposts of New Age culture, and there he finds something he wasn't looking for.

Neste volume publicam-se os dois primeiros livros de um quinteto, escrito entre 1996 e 2012, que segue a vida de Patrick Melrose. Em Deixa lá, Patrick é o filho de cinco anos, frágil e filosófico, de um pai brutal e uma mãe omissa. Reunida numa casa na Provença, a aristocrática família aguarda a chegada de visitas. Em Más novas, Patrick, agora com vinte e dois anos, recebe um telefonema: o pai morreu, e ele terá de voar até Nova Iorque para recolher as suas cinzas. Aí chegado, gasta dinheiro a rodos num festim de drogas e bebida, na tentativa de silenciar o bizarro circo de feras em que se tornou a sua mente.

Patrick Melrose are treizeci de ani și încearcă să-și depășească dependențele. După ce și-a risipit cea mai mare parte a moștenirii, are nevoie de un loc de muncă și vrea să devină avocat. După aproape cincisprezece ani, Patrick își vede soția epuizată de maternitate, mama înșelată de o fundație New Age, iar pe Robert, fiul lui în vârstă de cinci ani, înțelegând mai multe decât ar trebui.Cândva bogată și ilustră, familia Melrose trebuie să facă față promisiunilor încălcate, adulterului și sentimentelor refulate. Ciclul se încheie cu înmormântarea mamei lui Patrick. El se întreabă dacă viața fără părinții săi va reprezenta într-adevăr eliberarea la care a sperat de atâta vreme.Stilul aforistic și spiritual al lui St Aubyn amintește de Evelyn Waugh și Oscar Wilde. Sunday TelegraphUnul dintre cele mai bune cicluri din ficțiunea contemporană. The Boston GlobeO proză sclipitoare, șocantă… De neuitat. The Wall Street JournalSerialul Patrick Melrose, cu Benedict Cumberbatch în rolul principal, este disponibil pe HBO GO

Titles in On the EdgeA Clue to the ExitLost for WordsOn the EdgeSabine is the most mercurial woman Peter Thorpe has ever known. Such is his desire for her that he overturns his whole life – his disillusioned merchant-banker’s life – and leaves everything behind, not caring that his lover is of no fixed address, nor that his search for her will take him to the beating heart of New Ageism in northern California.A Clue to the ExitCharlie Fairburn, successful screenwriter, ex-husband and absent father, has been given six months to live. He resolves to stake half his fortune on a couple of turns of the roulette wheel and, to his agent’s disgust, to write a novel - about death. In the casino he meets his muse. Charlie grows as addicted to writing fiction as she is to gambling. His novel is set on a train and involves a group of characters (familiar to readers of St Aubyn’s earlier work) who are locked in a debate about the nature of consciousness. As this train gets stuck at Didcot, and Charlie gets more passionately entangled with the dangerous Angelique, A Clue to the Exit comes to its startling climax. Exquisitely crafted, witty and thoughtful, Edward St Aubyn’s dazzling novel probes the very heart of being.Lost for WordsFrom the bestselling author of the Patrick Melrose novels, this is a thought-provoking and entertaining insight into a sniping world of literature, celebrity culture and ambition.

The author of the Patrick Melrose novels presents a razor-sharp, fabulously entertaining satire that cuts to the quick of some of the deepest questions about the place of art in our celebrity-obsessed culture. In conversation with Francine Prose (Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932), with an introduction by Paul W. Morris (PEN American Center).