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Patrick Melrose #5
At Last
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.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2011
172 people are currently reading
4045 people want to read
About the author
Edward St. Aubyn
20 books1,194 followersEdward St Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He was educated at Westminster school and Keble college, Oxford University. He is the author of six novels, the most recent of which, ‘Mother’s Milk’, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, won the 2007 Prix Femina Etranger and won the 2007 South Bank Show award on literature.
His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992) won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994) became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’.
His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and A Clue to the Exit (2000).
His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992) won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994) became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’.
His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and A Clue to the Exit (2000).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 626 reviews
January 11, 2016
How much wit, wisdom and fine writing can an author stuff into a novel yet still be, for me, less than fully satisfying? In the case of Edward St. Aubyn and the last of his Patrick Melrose novels, quite a lot. In a more perfect world, where denouements are de rigueur and the ones you’re rooting for triumph in glory, Patrick would have used his keen intellect and insights into human nature to find an engaging space for himself. But I guess At Last was too true to life for that, or at least too true to St. Aubyn’s life. (The book mirrors the author’s world very closely.) What could have been galvanizing events – his unsupportive mother’s funeral, his social milieu exposed for its superficiality, and his boys becoming better versions of himself – nudged him closer to mental well-being, but were lacking in punch. Instead, we get cleverness as an end in itself, humor as bitter as radicchio, and self-reflections that bordered on solipsistic.
That said, I enjoyed the writing so much that it almost made up for any aversion I felt from the scant drams of growth. See from these examples if you agree.
Patrick’s abusive father, David, is revealed for who he is in this passage:
Patrick felt that his mother, Eleanor, who was ill-equipped to protect him as a child, was drawn to (quasi-) Christian charity instead.
David’s friend Nicholas was almost as bad as David himself, but sometimes he made me laugh and cringe. Here he is opining about Porgy and Bess.
In a later exchange, Nicholas and Patrick drew different conclusions about David.
Finally, fragile though it may be, Patrick settles into a new equilibrium.
With this last quote, there were aspects of the new Patrick that rang true; ones that said maybe he really was on the right track. St. Aubyn confessed to writing this as a form of therapy. Patrick’s recognition that his parents were themselves products of bad parents and unhappy lives, deserving of as much understanding as blame, confers a certain magnanimity. Maybe it wasn’t so stunted after all. I hope some of you read the series to form your own views. It’s entertaining, smart and possibly even enlightening.
I wrote about the four prior Patrick Melrose novels here. That was a more thorough review, meaning long-winded and overbearing. Please feel free to disagree, though.
That said, I enjoyed the writing so much that it almost made up for any aversion I felt from the scant drams of growth. See from these examples if you agree.
Patrick’s abusive father, David, is revealed for who he is in this passage:
David sat in his dark glasses smoking a cigar, angled away from Patrick, a jaundiced cloud of pastis on the table in front of him, extolling his educational methods to Nicholas Pratt: the stimulation of an instinct to survive; the development of self-sufficiency; an antidote to maternal mollycoddling; in the end, the benefits were so self-evident that only the stupidity and sheepishness of the herd could explain why every three-year-old was not chucked into the deep end of a swimming pool before he knew how to swim.
Patrick felt that his mother, Eleanor, who was ill-equipped to protect him as a child, was drawn to (quasi-) Christian charity instead.
Eleanor had expected to meet Jesus at the end of a tunnel after she died. The poor man was a slave to his fans, waiting to show crowds of eager dead the neon countryside that lay beyond the rebirth canal of earthly annihilation. It must be hard to be chosen as optimism's master cliché, the Light at the End of the Tunnel, ruling over a glittering army of half-full glasses and silver-lined clouds.
David’s friend Nicholas was almost as bad as David himself, but sometimes he made me laugh and cringe. Here he is opining about Porgy and Bess.
How nauseating, thought Nicholas, a Jew being sentimental on behalf of a Negro: you lucky fellows, you've got plenty o' nuthin', whereas we're weighted down with all this international capital and these wretched Broadway musical hits.
In a later exchange, Nicholas and Patrick drew different conclusions about David.
'Oh, I disagree,' said Nicholas. 'He saw the funny side of everything.'
'He only saw the funny side of things that didn't have one,' said Patrick. 'That's not a sense of humour, just a form of cruelty.'
Finally, fragile though it may be, Patrick settles into a new equilibrium.
This flat, the bachelor pad of a non-bachelor, the student digs of a non-student, was as good a place as he could wish for to practice being unconsoled. The lifelong tension between dependency and independence, between home and adventure, could be resolved only by being at home everywhere, by learning to cast an equal gaze on the raging self-importance of each mood and incident. He had some way to go. He only had to run out of his favourite bath oil to feel like taking a sledgehammer to the bath and begging a doctor for a Valium script.
With this last quote, there were aspects of the new Patrick that rang true; ones that said maybe he really was on the right track. St. Aubyn confessed to writing this as a form of therapy. Patrick’s recognition that his parents were themselves products of bad parents and unhappy lives, deserving of as much understanding as blame, confers a certain magnanimity. Maybe it wasn’t so stunted after all. I hope some of you read the series to form your own views. It’s entertaining, smart and possibly even enlightening.
I wrote about the four prior Patrick Melrose novels here. That was a more thorough review, meaning long-winded and overbearing. Please feel free to disagree, though.
May 30, 2024
Словом, для мене ця серія більш нудна, ніж цікава. Персонажі дратують своїм ідіотизмом та снобізмом. Мати, яка закривала очі на згвалтування свого сина, в цій частині був момент, де пояснюється ще, що вона після якогось інциденту втекла і викликала поліцію, але його не забрали, проте Патрік залишився з ним, а він його гвалтував, ну така собі мати якщо чесно. Ніколи не зрозумію людей, які зраджують, гаразд вам хочеться там секс або прояв тепла, так розійдіться в чому ваша проблема, а тут ще Патрік дорікає свою дружину, що вона має коханця, хоча в той же час, сам зраджує, Л-логіка.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2025
“La infancia era el destino”
Eleanor, la madre de Patrick Melrose, se había muerto… por fin. Hacía solo un año que Patrick había hecho su última visita a la Sala de Vigilancia de Suicidas del Ala de Depresivos del hospital Priory en la que ingresó presa de delírium trémens a los que le había conducido su reciente ruptura matrimonial.
“Ahora que era huérfano todo era perfecto. Tenía la impresión de llevar toda la vida esperando esa sensación de plenitud.”
Pero la cosa no era tan fácil. Razones para pensar así no le faltaban —para conocerlas, solo tienen que leer los cuatro volúmenes previos de esta imperdible pentalogía de Edward ST. Aubyn que esta novela culmina de una forma magnífica—, pero le era difícil superar la idea que tuvo desde niño de que su madre había sido covíctima de la aterradora convivencia con su padre y que hizo todo lo que pudo por protegerle. Ahora esa idea poco tenía que hacer para superar la sensación de haber sido un “juguete de la relación sadomasoquista entre sus padres”, de haber sido utilizado por su madre “como extensión de su sed de humillación”.
“Creo que las muerte de mi madre es lo mejor que me ha pasado desde… bueno, desde que murió mi padre”
El peso del dolor mezclado con la rabia le abruma, y en la ceremonia de incineración de su madre tiene además que soportar el esnobismo de los presentes, la hermana de su madre, un antiguo amigo de su padre con el que compartía ciertas aficiones, un primo lejano, el examante de su mujer, su examante, la exsuegra… todos representantes de ese “número minúsculo de personas cuyos orígenes, aspecto o talento para la diversión significaban que merecía la pena invitarlas a cenar” y que formaban parte del «gran mundo». Ese tipo de gente capaz de negar el permiso a uno de sus muchos lacayos para asistir al entierro de su hermano porque precisamente él tenía que servir la sémola de maíz en la cena de esa noche, o que, obligados a reducir gastos tras el crac económico, no podían dejar de utilizar los Rolls-Royce ni desprenderse del palacio que utilizaban para recibir a los amigos. Suerte que bastó con sacrificar uno de los seis periódicos que recibía cada invitado con el desayuno.
“Gracias a Dios había gente que era feliz con nada… y así la gente como ella (y el resto de las personas que había conocido en su vida) podía tener más”
Sus padres habían determinado su destino, ahora que la última de las causas había desaparecido, ¿había alguuna posibilidad de modificarlo?
“Los comportamientos podían cambiarse, las actitudes modificarse, las mentalidades transformarse, pero costaba dialogar con los hábitos somáticos de la infancia.”
December 10, 2020
This was a bridge too far for me. The last part of the Patrick Melrose saga, like the first part, takes place on a single day, the funeral of his mother. Lots of minor characters are given the opportunity to have their say in this part. A lot of which is rather tedious and often an excuse to make fun of them. Everyone is trying to talk themselves into some kind of workable wisdom but usually it's like someone trying to keep dry by holding a newspaper over their head during a rainstorm. It's strange that St Aubyn makes constant fun of various forms of counselling and yet Patrick himself is incessantly engaged in his own private form of counselling which at times seems no less self-serving and bogus than the new age stuff. By the end I wasn't at all convinced Patrick had developed as a character. He still seemed to me immature, self-pitying and egotistical, the kind of man incapable of sustaining any kind of fruitful relationship.
December 5, 2013
This is an exceptional novel that draws a clear line between the qualitative differences of contemporary British fiction and contemporary American fiction. Those who celebrate Jonathan Safron Foer, David Foster Wallace or Junot Diaz ought to study each of this novel's 270 pages (or at least the best 230 of them) and see how intelligent fiction looks when it is handled by an engaging adult narrator.
The end of At Last has its tedious moments, but they are tedious for being moments of honestly expressed ideas about death (as opposed merely to invoking empathy for one's tedium). There is no epiphany in this novel, or in its four predecessors. Rather, there is the adult matter of muddling through what events befall children, without a clashing of cymbals at every interval.
As before, St. Aubyn is best when satirizing the European aristocracy:
. . . the more or less secret superiority and the more or less secret shame of being rich, generating their characteristic disguises: the philanthropy solution, the alcoholic solution, the mask of eccentricity, the search for salvation in perfect taste; the defeated, the idle and the frivolous, and their opponents, the standard-bearers, all living in a world that the dense glitter of alternatives made it hard for love and work to penetrate. If these values were in themselves sterile, they looked all the more ridiculous after two generations of disinheritance. (p. 28)
And:
Above all, she was a baby, not a 'big baby' like so many adults, but a small baby perfectly preserved in the pickling jar of money, alcohol and fantasy. (p. 76)
And:
No doubt his grandmother and his great-grandfather had hoped to empower a senator, enrich a great art collection or encourage a dazzling marriage, but in the end they had mainly subsidized idleness, drunkenness, treachery and divorce. (p. 114)
If Patrick Melrose does not turn out a hero after lo these 1,000 pages with him (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk and At Last), he at least turns out a workable human being. He is an unusual canvas for a writer to choose, and his wife, oddly, is the flattest of all his creator's characters. But the hours a reader spends with him, especially after the monstrous goings-on in the first two novels, are a refined and perhaps decadent sort of pleasure - the very thing Melrose might rail against.
The end of At Last has its tedious moments, but they are tedious for being moments of honestly expressed ideas about death (as opposed merely to invoking empathy for one's tedium). There is no epiphany in this novel, or in its four predecessors. Rather, there is the adult matter of muddling through what events befall children, without a clashing of cymbals at every interval.
As before, St. Aubyn is best when satirizing the European aristocracy:
. . . the more or less secret superiority and the more or less secret shame of being rich, generating their characteristic disguises: the philanthropy solution, the alcoholic solution, the mask of eccentricity, the search for salvation in perfect taste; the defeated, the idle and the frivolous, and their opponents, the standard-bearers, all living in a world that the dense glitter of alternatives made it hard for love and work to penetrate. If these values were in themselves sterile, they looked all the more ridiculous after two generations of disinheritance. (p. 28)
And:
Above all, she was a baby, not a 'big baby' like so many adults, but a small baby perfectly preserved in the pickling jar of money, alcohol and fantasy. (p. 76)
And:
No doubt his grandmother and his great-grandfather had hoped to empower a senator, enrich a great art collection or encourage a dazzling marriage, but in the end they had mainly subsidized idleness, drunkenness, treachery and divorce. (p. 114)
If Patrick Melrose does not turn out a hero after lo these 1,000 pages with him (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk and At Last), he at least turns out a workable human being. He is an unusual canvas for a writer to choose, and his wife, oddly, is the flattest of all his creator's characters. But the hours a reader spends with him, especially after the monstrous goings-on in the first two novels, are a refined and perhaps decadent sort of pleasure - the very thing Melrose might rail against.
May 12, 2021
Ainda agora me despedi de Patrick Melrose, depois de uma boa temporada na companhia dele nos cinco livros que compõem esta série, e já sinto saudades desta alma torturada. Apesar de ser um homem desagradável, imaturo e egocêntrico com tendência para a autodestruição, redime-se através do amor pelos inteligentíssimos filhos, através da eloquência do seu discurso e da lucidez com que encara os traumas de infância. Filho de um pai sádico e pedófilo e de uma mãe distante e negligente, Patrick expressa-se sempre com um refinado humor negro e do ponto de vista de um privilegiado, o que não é do agrado de todos, mas que me diverte.
“Por Fim” decorre durante o funeral de Eleanor Melrose, mas não é um dia de luto para o filho. Com a muito aguardada morte da mãe caída na degradação física e mental, Patrick tem a esperança de enterrar um passado de sofrimento, depois de mais uma temporada numa clínica de desintoxicação.
Em vez do brinquedo macio ou do boneco de pelúcia que se dá a uma criança para a confortar na ausência da sua mãe, estavam a oferecer-lhe um cadáver, de dedos descarnados agarrando uma rosa branca de plástico com pétalas de seda rígida artificialmente posicionadas sobre um coração parado. Tinha o sarcasmo de uma relíquia, tanto quanto o prestígio de uma metonímia. Fazia as vezes da sua mãe e da ausência dela com igual autoridade.
Nenhum dos quatro posteriores volumes está ao nível do primeiro, “Deixa Lá”, mas admiro o fôlego de Edward St. Aubyn, que é capaz tanto de incomodar o leitor com as afirmações cruas das personagens...
- Acho que a morte da minha mãe foi o melhor que me aconteceu desde... bem, desde a morte do meu pai – disse Patrick.
- Não pode ser assim tão simples – disse Johnny -, senão teria de haver bandos folgazões de órfãos por aí aos pulos pelas ruas.
...como de fazer sátira social...
Os egípcios é que a sabiam toda, com aquilo das pirâmides. Que maior conforto do que uma coisa enorme e permanente com os nossos haveres todos muito bem guardados (e haveres dos outros também! Um ror de haveres!) construída por milhares de escravos que levavam consigo o segredo da construção para as suas sepulturas incógnitas!
...como de comover com cenas em que se sente a perda e desilusão do protagonista ao ter de abandonar o único lugar que sentiu como realmente seu, uma mansão no sul de França rodeada de oliveiras e figueiras.
Ele sabia que era preciso terminar o contrato mágico com esta paisagem, mas o ar carregado de eletricidade e o violento protesto da tempestade renovavam a mente arcaica do menino (...). Com o rosto lavado em água não havia qualquer necessidade de lágrimas, nenhum grito era necessário sob um céu que se desmoronava.
Raramente a adaptação televisiva de um livro corresponde àquilo que imaginei na leitura, mas a escolha do histriónico Benedict Cumberbatch para o papel de Patrick Melrose foi perfeita, pelo que, na minha mente, já se tornaram indissociáveis.
- É a pior dependência de todas – disse Patrick. – Esquece a heroína. Tenta deixar a ironia, aquela necessidade arreigada de significar duas coisas ao mesmo tempo, de estar em dois lugares ao mesmo tempo, menos no da catástrofe de um sentido fixo.
- Não! – disse Julia. – Já tenho problemas que cheguem em usar pensos de nicotina e fumar ao mesmo tempo. Não me tires a minha ironia, deixa-me ao menos um bocado de sarcasmo.
- O sarcasmo não conta. Significa apenas uma coisa: desprezo.
- Sempre me saíste uma aberração de primeira – disse Julia. - Há quem goste de um pouco de sarcasmo.
“Por Fim” decorre durante o funeral de Eleanor Melrose, mas não é um dia de luto para o filho. Com a muito aguardada morte da mãe caída na degradação física e mental, Patrick tem a esperança de enterrar um passado de sofrimento, depois de mais uma temporada numa clínica de desintoxicação.
Em vez do brinquedo macio ou do boneco de pelúcia que se dá a uma criança para a confortar na ausência da sua mãe, estavam a oferecer-lhe um cadáver, de dedos descarnados agarrando uma rosa branca de plástico com pétalas de seda rígida artificialmente posicionadas sobre um coração parado. Tinha o sarcasmo de uma relíquia, tanto quanto o prestígio de uma metonímia. Fazia as vezes da sua mãe e da ausência dela com igual autoridade.
Nenhum dos quatro posteriores volumes está ao nível do primeiro, “Deixa Lá”, mas admiro o fôlego de Edward St. Aubyn, que é capaz tanto de incomodar o leitor com as afirmações cruas das personagens...
- Acho que a morte da minha mãe foi o melhor que me aconteceu desde... bem, desde a morte do meu pai – disse Patrick.
- Não pode ser assim tão simples – disse Johnny -, senão teria de haver bandos folgazões de órfãos por aí aos pulos pelas ruas.
...como de fazer sátira social...
Os egípcios é que a sabiam toda, com aquilo das pirâmides. Que maior conforto do que uma coisa enorme e permanente com os nossos haveres todos muito bem guardados (e haveres dos outros também! Um ror de haveres!) construída por milhares de escravos que levavam consigo o segredo da construção para as suas sepulturas incógnitas!
...como de comover com cenas em que se sente a perda e desilusão do protagonista ao ter de abandonar o único lugar que sentiu como realmente seu, uma mansão no sul de França rodeada de oliveiras e figueiras.
Ele sabia que era preciso terminar o contrato mágico com esta paisagem, mas o ar carregado de eletricidade e o violento protesto da tempestade renovavam a mente arcaica do menino (...). Com o rosto lavado em água não havia qualquer necessidade de lágrimas, nenhum grito era necessário sob um céu que se desmoronava.
Raramente a adaptação televisiva de um livro corresponde àquilo que imaginei na leitura, mas a escolha do histriónico Benedict Cumberbatch para o papel de Patrick Melrose foi perfeita, pelo que, na minha mente, já se tornaram indissociáveis.
- É a pior dependência de todas – disse Patrick. – Esquece a heroína. Tenta deixar a ironia, aquela necessidade arreigada de significar duas coisas ao mesmo tempo, de estar em dois lugares ao mesmo tempo, menos no da catástrofe de um sentido fixo.
- Não! – disse Julia. – Já tenho problemas que cheguem em usar pensos de nicotina e fumar ao mesmo tempo. Não me tires a minha ironia, deixa-me ao menos um bocado de sarcasmo.
- O sarcasmo não conta. Significa apenas uma coisa: desprezo.
- Sempre me saíste uma aberração de primeira – disse Julia. - Há quem goste de um pouco de sarcasmo.
May 18, 2020
St. Aubyn saves the best for last with this concluding PM book - and that needs to be qualified. The end of the series is a game-changer, and a particular challenge in that almost the entire book takes place at Patrick's mother's funeral. (~aside from a few flashbacks and a coda.)
One wouldn't think such a choice would be sustainable non-stop but it all works immeasurably well. It also serves the argument that, although both parents were shown to be monstrous, mom seems to bear the bulk of the responsibility, the penalty of saying 'No' time and again to opportunities for change and growth and maternal redemption. (Being hellbent on destruction of everything in his path, dad was a satanic lost cause.)
By the time we reach this book, we have seen Patrick through variations of external / internal abuse. We have watched him take various necessary steps in coming back around to the land of the (normally) living. We have witnessed one step forward, two steps back. Even though the advances are admirable, we're made to understand just how deep emotional scars run and how long they hang around. ~especially when closure is not going to be part of the deal.
It's a particular relief to note the concerted effort Patrick makes in filtering his personal hell for the sake of his two sons (drawn adorably) - and even for the sake of his refreshingly intelligent wife (somewhat tenuous though their relationship is, they weather storms with sufficient trust).
In wrapping up this series, St. Aubyn is quick to equate a funeral with circus atmosphere, thus allowing a rather entertaining path to the finish line. Many characters we have previously met (along with a significant new one) are here gathered together for comic effect, reminding us of Patrick's almost-complete immersion in social folly.
If all doesn't end exactly well, at least (which is all that might be believable) Patrick begins to genuinely let go - which finally allows him to breathe more freely.
One wouldn't think such a choice would be sustainable non-stop but it all works immeasurably well. It also serves the argument that, although both parents were shown to be monstrous, mom seems to bear the bulk of the responsibility, the penalty of saying 'No' time and again to opportunities for change and growth and maternal redemption. (Being hellbent on destruction of everything in his path, dad was a satanic lost cause.)
By the time we reach this book, we have seen Patrick through variations of external / internal abuse. We have watched him take various necessary steps in coming back around to the land of the (normally) living. We have witnessed one step forward, two steps back. Even though the advances are admirable, we're made to understand just how deep emotional scars run and how long they hang around. ~especially when closure is not going to be part of the deal.
It's a particular relief to note the concerted effort Patrick makes in filtering his personal hell for the sake of his two sons (drawn adorably) - and even for the sake of his refreshingly intelligent wife (somewhat tenuous though their relationship is, they weather storms with sufficient trust).
In wrapping up this series, St. Aubyn is quick to equate a funeral with circus atmosphere, thus allowing a rather entertaining path to the finish line. Many characters we have previously met (along with a significant new one) are here gathered together for comic effect, reminding us of Patrick's almost-complete immersion in social folly.
If all doesn't end exactly well, at least (which is all that might be believable) Patrick begins to genuinely let go - which finally allows him to breathe more freely.
February 19, 2018
Set on the day of Eleanor's funeral, once again the Melrose family is brought together with friends and hangers on for the finale to this 5-book series (quintet?). For me, there's too much of tiresome Nicholas Pratt, the last of the adults left alive from the opening book, and too little of Patrick himself - until the end.
But what a quietly wonderful ending! Orphaned at last, separated from his wife, Patrick finally opens himself to the possibility of healing: 'he suddenly wanted to see his children, real children, not the ghosts of their ancestors' childhoods, real children with a reasonable chance of enjoying their lives.' For those of us who have followed Patrick through the tribulations of five books, this is triumph indeed.
Looking back on the series, it's the second book Bad News which remains my favourite: the writing stings but St. Aubyn finds the blackest humour in his account of desperate junkie-dom. Nevertheless, and despite the uneveness and occasional longeurs, this is a must-read series: some glorious writing, corrosive and caustic, and a story unlike anything else I've read.
But what a quietly wonderful ending! Orphaned at last, separated from his wife, Patrick finally opens himself to the possibility of healing: 'he suddenly wanted to see his children, real children, not the ghosts of their ancestors' childhoods, real children with a reasonable chance of enjoying their lives.' For those of us who have followed Patrick through the tribulations of five books, this is triumph indeed.
Looking back on the series, it's the second book Bad News which remains my favourite: the writing stings but St. Aubyn finds the blackest humour in his account of desperate junkie-dom. Nevertheless, and despite the uneveness and occasional longeurs, this is a must-read series: some glorious writing, corrosive and caustic, and a story unlike anything else I've read.
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February 3, 2017Phew, done at last with the 5 Patrick Melrose novels. St-Aubyn’s positively is a terrific writer - his prose bristles with stunning, brilliantly articulated reflections - but I confess to keep ruminating on this, having strongly mixed feelings on the whole set-up– I will come back to it.
December 25, 2014
This is the last in the Patrick Melrose series and I enjoyed it very much. Edward St. Aubyn writes so beautifully and this book was funny,sad and thoughtful all at the same time. The whole book takes place in one day or actually at one event, the funeral of Patrick's mother. It is a really clever way to round of the series as we get to see all of the main characters gathered together, witness the changes that have occurred to all of them over time and find out what they all think about life, death and each other. And the ending is just perfect. There seems to be hope for Patrick after all.
June 2, 2011
Fearless Writing.
Edward StAubyn has been one of my favourite authors since Never Mind, his first book which won the Betty Trask Award – the prize for under-35 years olds. St Aubyn is now into his fifties and I’m in my…let’s not go there. So as I’ve grown up and the novel was followed by sequels, all of which won literary respect and acclaim, Patrick Melrose, the erudite, dry, damaged and damaging’s central character, has grown up with me. Grown up, or just moved through time? This last novel of the series reveals whether we do or don’t learn from life’s experiences. And if something is going to teach Patrick about life, it’s his mother’s death.
The novel is entirely centred around the events at Patrick’s mother’s funeral. Ironically it is in her death that Patrick is forced to appreciate the whole person that his mother was and from there he can become a man and father himself. As a child, his mother didn’t intervene, protect or care for him, even when he was being physically and psychologically abused by his tyrannical, alcoholic father and nor did she offer anything to him when he was older and she was too preoccupied with her philanthropic causes – giving everything she could away – including the family home - to every other needy cause but her son’s. Patrick has no choice if he wants to move on but to accept that during his mother’s life, and now death, he will not get her love, and that she can't, as nor can any woman, really save him.
With her sealed in a coffin, Patrick is free to lay to rest the rotting, scary and shameful skeletons that were trapped in the Melrose family cupboards. Patrick says at one point, ‘the death of my mother is the best thing that’s ever happened to me since…well since the death of my father’. It sounds callous, but St Aubyn’s extraordinary talent is presenting the reader with what’s buried under taboos and call for appropriate behaviour – in other words – what we really think and feel.
I felt real pain at times, reading this, but also laughed out loud on many occasions. St Aubyn is dreadfully, morbidly funny. There’s not a word out of place. The sentences and scenes fluctuate between dark hilarity, bright insight and poetry.
I hope this description doesn’t make the book sound like something you might see on the Jeremy Kyle show or Oprah. And it’s easy to dismiss these books as ‘just about posh people’ – St Aubyn writes about inherited wealth but also all that we inherit from our families and the burden it leaves the next generation with.
I’m not the first to say Edward St Aubyn is one of the great writers of our times and reading this last novel in the Melrose series, confirms it.
Edward StAubyn has been one of my favourite authors since Never Mind, his first book which won the Betty Trask Award – the prize for under-35 years olds. St Aubyn is now into his fifties and I’m in my…let’s not go there. So as I’ve grown up and the novel was followed by sequels, all of which won literary respect and acclaim, Patrick Melrose, the erudite, dry, damaged and damaging’s central character, has grown up with me. Grown up, or just moved through time? This last novel of the series reveals whether we do or don’t learn from life’s experiences. And if something is going to teach Patrick about life, it’s his mother’s death.
The novel is entirely centred around the events at Patrick’s mother’s funeral. Ironically it is in her death that Patrick is forced to appreciate the whole person that his mother was and from there he can become a man and father himself. As a child, his mother didn’t intervene, protect or care for him, even when he was being physically and psychologically abused by his tyrannical, alcoholic father and nor did she offer anything to him when he was older and she was too preoccupied with her philanthropic causes – giving everything she could away – including the family home - to every other needy cause but her son’s. Patrick has no choice if he wants to move on but to accept that during his mother’s life, and now death, he will not get her love, and that she can't, as nor can any woman, really save him.
With her sealed in a coffin, Patrick is free to lay to rest the rotting, scary and shameful skeletons that were trapped in the Melrose family cupboards. Patrick says at one point, ‘the death of my mother is the best thing that’s ever happened to me since…well since the death of my father’. It sounds callous, but St Aubyn’s extraordinary talent is presenting the reader with what’s buried under taboos and call for appropriate behaviour – in other words – what we really think and feel.
I felt real pain at times, reading this, but also laughed out loud on many occasions. St Aubyn is dreadfully, morbidly funny. There’s not a word out of place. The sentences and scenes fluctuate between dark hilarity, bright insight and poetry.
I hope this description doesn’t make the book sound like something you might see on the Jeremy Kyle show or Oprah. And it’s easy to dismiss these books as ‘just about posh people’ – St Aubyn writes about inherited wealth but also all that we inherit from our families and the burden it leaves the next generation with.
I’m not the first to say Edward St Aubyn is one of the great writers of our times and reading this last novel in the Melrose series, confirms it.
December 27, 2021
I read the previous four books in St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose quintet earlier this month, but decided to take a break before tackling this final part, which is in many ways the most enjoyable book in the series, perhaps because all of its darker elements have already been explored in depth in the earlier books.
Like the first and third parts the action is confined to a single day, the day of his mother Eleanor's funeral, two years after Mother's Milk ends. The narrative spends more time exploring Patrick's perspective than some of the earlier books, though parts of the book follow other characters, particularly the rather entertaining parts that explore the thoughts of those attending the funeral.
Patrick is now separated from his wife Mary and is no longer drinking. His mother's death brings back many of his unresolved issues with his father, stirred up by another character from the first book, Nicholas Pratt. The ending has a tentatively hopeful note of closure, but one senses that St Aubyn could return to the story again.
Like the first and third parts the action is confined to a single day, the day of his mother Eleanor's funeral, two years after Mother's Milk ends. The narrative spends more time exploring Patrick's perspective than some of the earlier books, though parts of the book follow other characters, particularly the rather entertaining parts that explore the thoughts of those attending the funeral.
Patrick is now separated from his wife Mary and is no longer drinking. His mother's death brings back many of his unresolved issues with his father, stirred up by another character from the first book, Nicholas Pratt. The ending has a tentatively hopeful note of closure, but one senses that St Aubyn could return to the story again.
August 17, 2024
At Last is a very satisfying conclusion to the Patrick Melrose series of books. It contains the now familiar combination of humour, profundity, and insight.
Eleanor, Patrick Melrose's negligent mother, has died and At Last takes place on the day of her funeral. We are reacquainted with many of the characters from previous books and we flit from their differing perspectives. The central question is will Eleanor's death finally set Patrick free? The denouement is more surprising and satisfying than I was expecting.
Edward St. Aubyn's five novels, borne of his own calamitous life story, make for a wonderful reading experience. By the end of At Last, Patrick Melrose has finally learned resilience, compassion, and a sense of responsibility. It was learned the hard way. That he didn't turn out like his abusive, evil father, or indeed his colluding and masochistic mother, is nothing short of miraculous.
I was slightly disappointed by the first two books, both were good but not great, however it is only as a cumulative experience that these Patrick Melrose novels work. There's little point just reading one. Treat the five short Patrick Melrose novels as one long book and you will enjoy a reading experience to rival Anthony Powell's magnificent A Dance To The Music Of Time - the highest praise I can give.
4/5
The five Patrick Melrose novels have been published in two separate volumes: Patrick Melrose Volume 1: Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope (1-3) + Patrick Melrose Volume 2: Mother's Milk and At Last (4&5)
Eleanor, Patrick Melrose's negligent mother, has died and At Last takes place on the day of her funeral. We are reacquainted with many of the characters from previous books and we flit from their differing perspectives. The central question is will Eleanor's death finally set Patrick free? The denouement is more surprising and satisfying than I was expecting.
Edward St. Aubyn's five novels, borne of his own calamitous life story, make for a wonderful reading experience. By the end of At Last, Patrick Melrose has finally learned resilience, compassion, and a sense of responsibility. It was learned the hard way. That he didn't turn out like his abusive, evil father, or indeed his colluding and masochistic mother, is nothing short of miraculous.
I was slightly disappointed by the first two books, both were good but not great, however it is only as a cumulative experience that these Patrick Melrose novels work. There's little point just reading one. Treat the five short Patrick Melrose novels as one long book and you will enjoy a reading experience to rival Anthony Powell's magnificent A Dance To The Music Of Time - the highest praise I can give.
4/5
The five Patrick Melrose novels have been published in two separate volumes: Patrick Melrose Volume 1: Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope (1-3) + Patrick Melrose Volume 2: Mother's Milk and At Last (4&5)
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March 1, 2014Patrick Melrose's gothic New Age Mrs. Jellyby of a mother has finally died and in At Last we attend her funeral, presumably (and for this reader, hopefully) ending the cycle.
I have to say that while the first three Melrose novels are unquestionably among the best books I've read in years, I wasn't so crazy about the last two. The repetitive analytic musings just get to be a bit much, and the wise little moppets dispensing adorable yogi-like aphorisms just go way too far in sugaring up the acrid sourness I'd loved so much in the beginning.
Still, I wolfed this volume down with an enthusiasm I haven't felt for reading in awhile, because Edward St. Aubyn is a fabulous fucking writer. While I don't think this book or the one preceding it measured up to the ones that came before, they're still a million times better than most other books out there. And so St. Aubyn can commit whatever the authorial equivalent is to wrecking our marriage with his nihilistic substance abuse and cynical affairs, and I will continue to stand faithfully by him! If his next novel is a saccharine children's book about a precocious little boy philosophizing cutely about the nature of evil and man, I'll complain a bit but I'll still suck it up with the famished and unquenchable greed of an addict.
I have to say that while the first three Melrose novels are unquestionably among the best books I've read in years, I wasn't so crazy about the last two. The repetitive analytic musings just get to be a bit much, and the wise little moppets dispensing adorable yogi-like aphorisms just go way too far in sugaring up the acrid sourness I'd loved so much in the beginning.
Still, I wolfed this volume down with an enthusiasm I haven't felt for reading in awhile, because Edward St. Aubyn is a fabulous fucking writer. While I don't think this book or the one preceding it measured up to the ones that came before, they're still a million times better than most other books out there. And so St. Aubyn can commit whatever the authorial equivalent is to wrecking our marriage with his nihilistic substance abuse and cynical affairs, and I will continue to stand faithfully by him! If his next novel is a saccharine children's book about a precocious little boy philosophizing cutely about the nature of evil and man, I'll complain a bit but I'll still suck it up with the famished and unquenchable greed of an addict.
December 29, 2014
Four or five stars? It seemed irrelevant after following the characters for so long. This doesn't have to be the end but At Last makes sense as a caesura or a finale. At his mother's funeral, Patrick Melrose is finally free of his parents but the legacy of problems they started is still to some extent with him.
I was so glad to find this compulsively readable as I had the first three Patrick Melrose books. I gave up on Mother's Milk somewhere in the first or second chapter: being presented with the intimate detail of a future you won't have is much more difficult than anything which echoes of a difficult past. The generality being further intensified because I originally began to read the series as a substitute for talking to a particular person who has some commonalities with the author and protagonist. (Albeit in his case the source of the villainy was public school, not his father.) From the very first, though, it was clear that St Aubyn - and Patrick - has very strong and richly layered voice all his own.
Such a very wise set of books, but not at all in the trite way that must be said thousands of times on this site of pull-your-socks-up self-help books and cheesy fiction with easy, pat, conclusions. This is far more rounded. There is all the understanding and intricacy here that comes from knowing the psychology, but with a minimal use of terminology and no need to castigate or categorise simply because of what is said in books. Instead how people feel and what they do is what matters; the English tradition of detached irony, of never really meaning anything, is constantly hauled up for questioning and roughing-up, yet there is still more than enough wit and humour here. The whole series is rather in the tradition of Carl Rogers, but it's also art for the sake of art, not for the sake of prescriptive examples and answers. (Those characters who are professionally supposed to provide such things, such as Johnny, now a classical Freudian analyst, also come in for a bit of a dig.)
Having missed out book four, I knew I didn't see the significance of absolutely everything, but it was still very much possible to follow the narrative. However, I really wouldn't recommend reading At Last before at least most of the preceding novels: this is a continuation of stories that would lose a lot without the background.
Due to the personal nature of some of the reviews I've posted in the last few months, and just anyway, I want to note that I'm rather glad of the brief mentions of Nicholas Pratt's daughter... She appeared earlier as someone who had been attending NA meetings, but whom Patrick didn't consider a proper addict with big problems, just a girl who sometimes got a bit upset or did a bit too much coke; here we learn she has done a lot of therapy and has barely spoken to her parents for years. Pratt is the symbol of a culture and attitude the books savagely attack, but he's clearly not a criminal and sociopathic sadist as was Patrick's father David. He is presented simply as someone who lacks empathy and has very fixed ideas about how things should be done ... It's as if the author also acknowledges that these things in themselves can cause enough complications to some people, though not on the rare headline scale of Patrick's experience. She is barely delineated as a character but I see her as a nod to all the people like me who could say, no it really wasn't great but on the other hand I'm no Dave Peltzer (or Patrick Melrose).
It's not all psychology here; there's even more philosophy here than in the trilogy books. Patrick's deliberations on a possible afterlife and the various characters' discussions on the nature of identity are the aspects of the series I connect with least. Though - as my lack of time for such stuff is because of experiences with neurological illness and consequent resolute belief that the brain and nervous system are the substance of the soul and personality - I would be very interested to know what St. Aubyn did with these themes in Mother's Milk whilst Eleanor is suffering from Alzheimer's and the philosopher Erasmus Price is also a significant character. But what I would certainly say is that these ideas bring a very rare intellectual depth to such readable books, and a seriousness about ideas which, in the context, it's tempting to say is far more Continental than British.
I was so glad to find this compulsively readable as I had the first three Patrick Melrose books. I gave up on Mother's Milk somewhere in the first or second chapter: being presented with the intimate detail of a future you won't have is much more difficult than anything which echoes of a difficult past. The generality being further intensified because I originally began to read the series as a substitute for talking to a particular person who has some commonalities with the author and protagonist. (Albeit in his case the source of the villainy was public school, not his father.) From the very first, though, it was clear that St Aubyn - and Patrick - has very strong and richly layered voice all his own.
Such a very wise set of books, but not at all in the trite way that must be said thousands of times on this site of pull-your-socks-up self-help books and cheesy fiction with easy, pat, conclusions. This is far more rounded. There is all the understanding and intricacy here that comes from knowing the psychology, but with a minimal use of terminology and no need to castigate or categorise simply because of what is said in books. Instead how people feel and what they do is what matters; the English tradition of detached irony, of never really meaning anything, is constantly hauled up for questioning and roughing-up, yet there is still more than enough wit and humour here. The whole series is rather in the tradition of Carl Rogers, but it's also art for the sake of art, not for the sake of prescriptive examples and answers. (Those characters who are professionally supposed to provide such things, such as Johnny, now a classical Freudian analyst, also come in for a bit of a dig.)
Having missed out book four, I knew I didn't see the significance of absolutely everything, but it was still very much possible to follow the narrative. However, I really wouldn't recommend reading At Last before at least most of the preceding novels: this is a continuation of stories that would lose a lot without the background.
Due to the personal nature of some of the reviews I've posted in the last few months, and just anyway, I want to note that I'm rather glad of the brief mentions of Nicholas Pratt's daughter... She appeared earlier as someone who had been attending NA meetings, but whom Patrick didn't consider a proper addict with big problems, just a girl who sometimes got a bit upset or did a bit too much coke; here we learn she has done a lot of therapy and has barely spoken to her parents for years. Pratt is the symbol of a culture and attitude the books savagely attack, but he's clearly not a criminal and sociopathic sadist as was Patrick's father David. He is presented simply as someone who lacks empathy and has very fixed ideas about how things should be done ... It's as if the author also acknowledges that these things in themselves can cause enough complications to some people, though not on the rare headline scale of Patrick's experience. She is barely delineated as a character but I see her as a nod to all the people like me who could say, no it really wasn't great but on the other hand I'm no Dave Peltzer (or Patrick Melrose).
It's not all psychology here; there's even more philosophy here than in the trilogy books. Patrick's deliberations on a possible afterlife and the various characters' discussions on the nature of identity are the aspects of the series I connect with least. Though - as my lack of time for such stuff is because of experiences with neurological illness and consequent resolute belief that the brain and nervous system are the substance of the soul and personality - I would be very interested to know what St. Aubyn did with these themes in Mother's Milk whilst Eleanor is suffering from Alzheimer's and the philosopher Erasmus Price is also a significant character. But what I would certainly say is that these ideas bring a very rare intellectual depth to such readable books, and a seriousness about ideas which, in the context, it's tempting to say is far more Continental than British.
February 28, 2012
Even with at least one spectacularly wry observation on every page; even with abstruse theological asides that are both plucky and pithy – The idea that an afterlife had been invented to reassure people who couldn't face the finality of death was no more plausible than the idea that the finality of death had been invented to reassure people who couldn't face the nightmare of endless experience. – yes, even including the transcendentally arch nastiness of a chattering coven of acidulously articulate, sublimely spiteful relatives cannot quite redeem the doldrums of St. Aubyn's final novel in his quintet. There's too much of the same blasted bloodied patrimony to be recovered again, surrendered again, then extinguished as a flailing echo for this book to have the feel of anything more than a brilliant coda to the novels which have come before.
Even so I couldn't stop reading it, richly enjoying it, howling with hateful laughter even when subjected to sharp shocks of self-recognition (and never in good way). I kept going right to the barely bitter end. And it was only as I was reading At Last that I realized I'd missed the first two novellas. Years ago I started with Some Hope, which turns out the be the midpoint. Fortunately there's a freshly-published omnibus, which I promptly ordered so I can jump into the terrible, ruthless, child-sacrificing story from its very first assault. Bad, bad Daddy.
Even so I couldn't stop reading it, richly enjoying it, howling with hateful laughter even when subjected to sharp shocks of self-recognition (and never in good way). I kept going right to the barely bitter end. And it was only as I was reading At Last that I realized I'd missed the first two novellas. Years ago I started with Some Hope, which turns out the be the midpoint. Fortunately there's a freshly-published omnibus, which I promptly ordered so I can jump into the terrible, ruthless, child-sacrificing story from its very first assault. Bad, bad Daddy.
January 22, 2018
The ‘action’ of this novel spans a single day: the day of Patrick Melrose’s mother’s funeral. But the effect is almost one of time-lapse, as key events from the parental past play in the background of our protagonist’s consciousness. In this novel, the reader is treated to the comic-tragic spectacle of Eleanor’s skimpily attended funeral and drinks-party wake, whilst her relentlessly analytical son tries to get to grips with both the finality and ongoing emotional turbulence caused by his mother’s death and life.
There are some wonderful moments of sharp dialogue in this last novel - and I do have a soft spot for the completely horrid snob Nicholas Pratt, who makes a welcome entrance and exit - but at times the storyline does get rather bogged down in Patrick’s solipsistic head. Still, it was an emotionally disturbing pleasure to read - and one can’t help but hope that Patrick makes some kind of peace with himself. The novel ends on a hopeful, even light, note, and at the very least one feels that Patrick’s children will have a happier life than he has managed.
“‘It’s the hardest addiction of all,’ said Patrick. ‘Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, that deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.’”
There are some wonderful moments of sharp dialogue in this last novel - and I do have a soft spot for the completely horrid snob Nicholas Pratt, who makes a welcome entrance and exit - but at times the storyline does get rather bogged down in Patrick’s solipsistic head. Still, it was an emotionally disturbing pleasure to read - and one can’t help but hope that Patrick makes some kind of peace with himself. The novel ends on a hopeful, even light, note, and at the very least one feels that Patrick’s children will have a happier life than he has managed.
“‘It’s the hardest addiction of all,’ said Patrick. ‘Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, that deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.’”
July 7, 2019
I find myself reacting to the Patrick Melrose novels in a similar way to Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan Novels. Individually, each one is a four star reading experience yet collectively they form a transcendent epic greater than the sum of its parts. Thus the last instalment merits five stars as it brings the whole narrative together so beautifully. While St Aubyn’s writing is as elegantly acerbic as ever, Patrick has changed. ‘At Last’ covers the day of his mother’s funeral. In the previous book he’d kicked the drugs and become an alcoholic; by this point he has gone through rehab and given up all substances. He’s divorced and renting a bedsit, albeit in the most expensive part of London. (Move out of Kensington if you want a separate bedroom, man!) Most notably, he has almost entirely given up making mean remarks. Patrick is now self-aware enough to realise this was a defence mechanism, one probably learned from the extraordinarily self-involved and cruel people he grew up around. ‘At Last’ unsurprisingly includes much musing on the past, some of which is so horrifying that it metaphorically punches you in the throat. Patrick’s parents are one of the most memorably appalling married couples that I’ve come across in literature.
While you might expect the final book in a series to be climactic, part of what think made both the Patrick Melrose and Neopolitan novels exceptional is a refusal to do this. Neither treats the main character’s life as a plot to resolve. Instead, they end quietly with self-reflection. There is no hyperbolic self-destruction in ‘At Last’, as Patrick has finally, with great effort, got beyond that. He reflects upon inheritance, memory, consciousness, and trauma; on his patterns of behaviour and why he developed them. Evidently he will never fully recover from his brutal childhood, yet he has survived, gained understanding, and even achieved a bit of catharsis. Perhaps most significant sign of progress is that he has a happy relationship with his own children, although he’s divorced from their mother. Despite the parenting he suffered, Patrick is a loving father (when present). This is shown in moving moments like this:
Patrick’s two children give the reader hope that his family’s toxicity is being diluted down the generations. They tell their awful maternal grandmother that she’s making mean remarks, to her great surprise: “How can you say that? That’s a horrible thing to say.” The privilege that allowed Patrick’s parents and their circle to act so monstrously with no meaningful consequences appears to be eroding. Or rather, it has damaged Patrick’s generation so much that they cannot or will not continue such exploitation. Not that they're paragons; Nancy is an unbearable profligate sponger. One can only hope that the following generation can manage to practise empathy without the weight of trauma. As well as depicting the class system better than any other contemporary novelist I can name, St Aubyn is astonishingly adept at writing mental illness. Fleur’s manic episode at the funeral is painfully visceral to observe. Her role is rather that of an inadvertently vengeful fury as she confronts Nicholas, the final staunch apologist for Patrick’s father.
I have on several previous occasions bemoaned the modernist tendency to centre novels on the emotions of privileged white men, to the neglect of wider social contexts, environmental issues, the possibility of women having feelings independently from men, etc. To my mind, the Patrick Melrose novels are the epitome of how White Men’s Feelings literature should be done. They are exquisitely written, psychologically astute, and profound rather than narcissistic. By depicting the psychic rottenness in a privileged milieu, they accord social context the importance it deserves. Moreover, Patrick gradually comes to realise how he uses women: ‘It was not the women who were at fault; it was his omnipotent delusion: the idea that they were there to be useful to him in the first place.’ Notably, his ex-wife Mary organises the whole funeral, yet he decides at the end to visit his children rather than calling a waitress he met there. Violent, grandiose masculinity ends with undignified dependence in old age, then a legacy of trauma. St Aubyn's characters are not glorified. By their deeds and thoughts, many condemn themselves.
I think the series would reward re-reading all in one volume. Although that would be an emotionally gruelling experience, St Aubyn’s writing is so immaculately polished that each sentence slips through your eyes and into your mind swiftly and smoothly. A hard effect to describe, so here it is in practise:
While you might expect the final book in a series to be climactic, part of what think made both the Patrick Melrose and Neopolitan novels exceptional is a refusal to do this. Neither treats the main character’s life as a plot to resolve. Instead, they end quietly with self-reflection. There is no hyperbolic self-destruction in ‘At Last’, as Patrick has finally, with great effort, got beyond that. He reflects upon inheritance, memory, consciousness, and trauma; on his patterns of behaviour and why he developed them. Evidently he will never fully recover from his brutal childhood, yet he has survived, gained understanding, and even achieved a bit of catharsis. Perhaps most significant sign of progress is that he has a happy relationship with his own children, although he’s divorced from their mother. Despite the parenting he suffered, Patrick is a loving father (when present). This is shown in moving moments like this:
Robert’s curiosity about his grandfather had prompted Patrick to tell him the story of his swimming lesson. [His father threw him into the pool.] He felt it would be too burdensome to tell his son about David’s beatings and sexual assaults, but at the same time wanted to give Robert a glimpse of his grandfather’s harshness. Robert was completely shocked.
“That’s so horrible,” he said. “I mean, a three-year-old would think he was dying. In fact, you could have died,” he added, giving Patrick a reassuring hug, as if he sensed that the threat was not completely over.
Robert’s empathy overwhelmed Patrick with the reality of what he had taken to be a relatively innocuous anecdote. He could hardly sleep and when he did he was soon woken by his pounding heart. He was hungry all the time but could not digest anything he ate. He could not digest the fact that his father was a man who had wanted to kill him, who would rather have drowned him than taught him to swim, a man who boasted of shooting someone in the head because he had screamed too much, and might shoot Patrick in the head as well, if he made too much noise.
Patrick’s two children give the reader hope that his family’s toxicity is being diluted down the generations. They tell their awful maternal grandmother that she’s making mean remarks, to her great surprise: “How can you say that? That’s a horrible thing to say.” The privilege that allowed Patrick’s parents and their circle to act so monstrously with no meaningful consequences appears to be eroding. Or rather, it has damaged Patrick’s generation so much that they cannot or will not continue such exploitation. Not that they're paragons; Nancy is an unbearable profligate sponger. One can only hope that the following generation can manage to practise empathy without the weight of trauma. As well as depicting the class system better than any other contemporary novelist I can name, St Aubyn is astonishingly adept at writing mental illness. Fleur’s manic episode at the funeral is painfully visceral to observe. Her role is rather that of an inadvertently vengeful fury as she confronts Nicholas, the final staunch apologist for Patrick’s father.
I have on several previous occasions bemoaned the modernist tendency to centre novels on the emotions of privileged white men, to the neglect of wider social contexts, environmental issues, the possibility of women having feelings independently from men, etc. To my mind, the Patrick Melrose novels are the epitome of how White Men’s Feelings literature should be done. They are exquisitely written, psychologically astute, and profound rather than narcissistic. By depicting the psychic rottenness in a privileged milieu, they accord social context the importance it deserves. Moreover, Patrick gradually comes to realise how he uses women: ‘It was not the women who were at fault; it was his omnipotent delusion: the idea that they were there to be useful to him in the first place.’ Notably, his ex-wife Mary organises the whole funeral, yet he decides at the end to visit his children rather than calling a waitress he met there. Violent, grandiose masculinity ends with undignified dependence in old age, then a legacy of trauma. St Aubyn's characters are not glorified. By their deeds and thoughts, many condemn themselves.
I think the series would reward re-reading all in one volume. Although that would be an emotionally gruelling experience, St Aubyn’s writing is so immaculately polished that each sentence slips through your eyes and into your mind swiftly and smoothly. A hard effect to describe, so here it is in practise:
The road ran beside the hedge-filled railings of the Mortlake Cemetery, past the Hammersmith and Fulham cemetery, across Chiswick Bridge, and down to the Chiswick Cemetery on the other side. Acre upon acre of gravestones mocking the real-estate ambitions of riverside developers. Why should death, of all nothings, take up so much space? Better to burn in the hollow blue air than claim a plot on that sunless beach, packed side by side in the bony ground, relying on the clutching roots of trees and flowers for a vague resurrection. Perhaps those who had known good mothering were drawn to the Earth’s absorbing womb, while the abandoned and betrayed longed to be dispersed into the heartless sky. Johnny might have a professional view. Repression was a different kind of burial, preserving trauma in the unconscious, like a statue buried in the desert sand, its sharp features protected from the weather of ordinary experience. Johnny might have views on that as well, but Patrick preferred to remain in silence. What was the unconscious anyway, as against any other form of memory, and why was it given the sovereignty of a definite article, turning it into a thing and a place when the rest of memory was a faculty and a process?
The car climbed the narrow, battered flyover that straddled the Hogarth roundabout. A temporary measure that just wouldn’t go away, it had been crying out for replacement ever since Patrick could remember. Perhaps it was the transport equivalent of giving up smoking: never quite the right day to give it up - there’s going to be a rush hour tomorrow morning… the weekend is coming up… let’s do this thing after the Olympics… 2020 is a lovely round number, a perfect time for a fresh start.
“This dodgy flyover,” said Patrick.
“I know,” said Johnny, “I always think it’s going to collapse.”
He hadn’t meant to talk. An inner monologue had broken the surface. Better sink down, better make a fresh start.
February 9, 2013
Just to be clear, I'm not giving this book 5 stars, I'm giving the whole Patrick Melrose series 5 stars. You can read 'Mother's Milk' without reading the 'Some Hope' trilogy, but 'At Last' will make no sense whatsoever unless you've read MM, and probably only about 80% sense unless you've read the others too. Despite which this has become a 'national bestseller!', has been reviewed ravingly, and seems to have attracted goodreads readers who hadn't read any of the other novels.
So veteran readers will know, at least in part, what to expect: gorgeous prose, Wildean wit, a host of ridiculous characters, and a fixation on what it's like to become a person when surrounded by tremendous wealth and trauma. But here, Patrick actually becomes a person, rather than falling back onto a raft of different 'substitutions for substitutions' for personhood (love, sex, drugs, mental health problems etc etc). That doesn't make it a 'happy' ending, but at least it's not distressing.
Like Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest,' 'At Last' sees the hero coming to accept the wisdom of addiction program cliches. Obviously the two works are very different, but I think reading them side by side could be very fruitful, particularly the different way they treat the problem of mental stability (in St Aubyn it's the intellectual sophisticate who comes to some kind of individuality, while the less intelligent wallow in the substitutions for it; in Wallace the sophisticate goes crazy, while the adorable but thuggish Don Gately is the one who finds piece), and the way they treat the problem of other people (in St Aubyn, they're necessary for stability; in DFW, they seem to be mostly obstacles to it). Also, St Aubyn is funnier.
I could go into ever greater depth on this (e.g., what's expected of 'the best writer of his generation' in England vs in the U.S.; the different treatment of different philosophical traditions; the silly/quirky nature of DFW's humor vs the biting, satirical nature of EStA's), but really, you should be out there reading all of the Melrose novels, not reading my review.
So veteran readers will know, at least in part, what to expect: gorgeous prose, Wildean wit, a host of ridiculous characters, and a fixation on what it's like to become a person when surrounded by tremendous wealth and trauma. But here, Patrick actually becomes a person, rather than falling back onto a raft of different 'substitutions for substitutions' for personhood (love, sex, drugs, mental health problems etc etc). That doesn't make it a 'happy' ending, but at least it's not distressing.
Like Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest,' 'At Last' sees the hero coming to accept the wisdom of addiction program cliches. Obviously the two works are very different, but I think reading them side by side could be very fruitful, particularly the different way they treat the problem of mental stability (in St Aubyn it's the intellectual sophisticate who comes to some kind of individuality, while the less intelligent wallow in the substitutions for it; in Wallace the sophisticate goes crazy, while the adorable but thuggish Don Gately is the one who finds piece), and the way they treat the problem of other people (in St Aubyn, they're necessary for stability; in DFW, they seem to be mostly obstacles to it). Also, St Aubyn is funnier.
I could go into ever greater depth on this (e.g., what's expected of 'the best writer of his generation' in England vs in the U.S.; the different treatment of different philosophical traditions; the silly/quirky nature of DFW's humor vs the biting, satirical nature of EStA's), but really, you should be out there reading all of the Melrose novels, not reading my review.
January 21, 2012
When asked which Picador writers he liked, Alan Hollinghurst mentioned Edward St Aubyn. Being a huge fan of Hollinghurst, I found Mother's Milk by St Aubyn at the local library, and now At Last. Be warned: At Last is a direct continuation of the former. My major problem with both novels is the presence of a precocious six-year-old boy who, in At Last, debates the nature of consciouness and makes a joke about Osama Bin Laden. This is an authorial mouthpiece, and not a credible character. Having said that, St Aubyn is a great writer about families, privilege and the psychoses of the rich and great (and the fallen rich and great). His writing is dense and astute, and very, very funny -- to the point of savagery, I think. But there is an element of tenderness and melancholy there, too. At Last takes place at the funeral for one of the major characters from Mother's Milk. This is probably one of the best fictional accounts of a funeral I have read to date, particularly how it brings out the worst in people (and some of the worst family members from the woodwork).
Read
July 19, 2018A quarter way through but pausing to start with the first of this series instead.
October 21, 2016
تاريخ القراءة الأصلية : ٢٠١٤
September 23, 2025
While I quite loved each of the five Patrick Melrose novels, taken individually, they did not for me merit the very highest rating. Having now finished the last of these—also by itself a similarly excellent experience—I can treat them as a single work and report that the quintet rises to an absolute masterpiece. How astonishing for a writer to create something that is beautifully written, clever, intellectually intriguing, touching, tragic, and funny, often all at the same time.
May 10, 2012
Amazing.
I hardly know where to start. I loved the five Patrick Melrose books that much. But perhaps I should just write down what I've been saying over the past month to anyone who will listen to me...
Edward St. Aubyn is a British writer who has published five books as part of the "Patrick Melrose series" over the past 22 years. He initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, and he published the first three books between 1992 and 1994. The fourth book started out as an entirely different work, with a protagonist named Mark. But St. Aubyn soon realized that Mark was, in fact, Patrick. And so, the fourth Patrick Melrose book was born. And then came the fifth novel earlier this year. And St. Aubyn claims that this book is the last one, but he has been "living with the Melroses" for 22 years now, and he agrees that his claims of finality are suspect because experience has shown that his unconscious will decide whether the series continues...
Another thing to know about the series is that Patrick Melrose is Edward St. Aubyn's alter ego, and many of the characters and events in the book are based on real people and events, many of which are the stuff of more lurid novels. St. Aubyn was born into an extraordinarily wealthy British family, although his mother, who was an American heiress, appears to be the primary source of his family's wealth. His father was charismatic... and sadistic and abused both Edward and his mother. And I believe that writing these novels was a sort of introspective and cathartic experience.
My husband insists that I liked these books because they were non-fiction, and I cannot emphasize enough that (a) I do not particularly enjoy reading nonfiction because I read almost solely because I appreciate the craft of fiction too much, (b) I never read memoirs, (c) I am almost completely disinterested in books about abuse and drug addiction but despite that I devoured these books (and the addiction book was one of my favorites -- he so vividly recounted the minute-to-minute existence of his life as an addict), and (d) finally and most importantly, St. Aubyn is a BRILLIANT prose stylist, a brilliant wit, amazing at character development and thematic development, and thus, these truly are among the best novels I have ever read.
The subject matter is difficult, but the most upsetting scenes take place quickly, and the books are largely concerned with the aftermath... the ways in which people grapple with trauma and painful experiences. But there's more to it than that even. Other subjects include: drug addiction (handled BRILLIANTLY -- did I just capitalize that word again?), wealth & the aristocracy -- a class of people who in this novel treat the most serious things frivolously and the most frivolous matters seriously, inheritance and disinheritance, motherhood and self-sacrifice, how people become trapped in their own personalities, and so forth...
Despite the serious subject matter, the books are hilarious and filled with witty ripostes. And St. Aubyn is just as brilliant (that word again) and witty in interviews -- which I recommend listening to, as well.
Even though any of the novels can be read standalone, it is such an experience to start with "Never Mind" and finish with this one, "At Last." I have spent the past month with the Melroses, and it was well, well worth it.
I hardly know where to start. I loved the five Patrick Melrose books that much. But perhaps I should just write down what I've been saying over the past month to anyone who will listen to me...
Edward St. Aubyn is a British writer who has published five books as part of the "Patrick Melrose series" over the past 22 years. He initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, and he published the first three books between 1992 and 1994. The fourth book started out as an entirely different work, with a protagonist named Mark. But St. Aubyn soon realized that Mark was, in fact, Patrick. And so, the fourth Patrick Melrose book was born. And then came the fifth novel earlier this year. And St. Aubyn claims that this book is the last one, but he has been "living with the Melroses" for 22 years now, and he agrees that his claims of finality are suspect because experience has shown that his unconscious will decide whether the series continues...
Another thing to know about the series is that Patrick Melrose is Edward St. Aubyn's alter ego, and many of the characters and events in the book are based on real people and events, many of which are the stuff of more lurid novels. St. Aubyn was born into an extraordinarily wealthy British family, although his mother, who was an American heiress, appears to be the primary source of his family's wealth. His father was charismatic... and sadistic and abused both Edward and his mother. And I believe that writing these novels was a sort of introspective and cathartic experience.
My husband insists that I liked these books because they were non-fiction, and I cannot emphasize enough that (a) I do not particularly enjoy reading nonfiction because I read almost solely because I appreciate the craft of fiction too much, (b) I never read memoirs, (c) I am almost completely disinterested in books about abuse and drug addiction but despite that I devoured these books (and the addiction book was one of my favorites -- he so vividly recounted the minute-to-minute existence of his life as an addict), and (d) finally and most importantly, St. Aubyn is a BRILLIANT prose stylist, a brilliant wit, amazing at character development and thematic development, and thus, these truly are among the best novels I have ever read.
The subject matter is difficult, but the most upsetting scenes take place quickly, and the books are largely concerned with the aftermath... the ways in which people grapple with trauma and painful experiences. But there's more to it than that even. Other subjects include: drug addiction (handled BRILLIANTLY -- did I just capitalize that word again?), wealth & the aristocracy -- a class of people who in this novel treat the most serious things frivolously and the most frivolous matters seriously, inheritance and disinheritance, motherhood and self-sacrifice, how people become trapped in their own personalities, and so forth...
Despite the serious subject matter, the books are hilarious and filled with witty ripostes. And St. Aubyn is just as brilliant (that word again) and witty in interviews -- which I recommend listening to, as well.
Even though any of the novels can be read standalone, it is such an experience to start with "Never Mind" and finish with this one, "At Last." I have spent the past month with the Melroses, and it was well, well worth it.
November 28, 2020
Edward St. Aubyn is one of my favourite authors along with Donna Tartt; which is the highest endorsement I can offer. One of the darker installations, but never failing in epic prose and philosophical density. I’m very sad now that I’ve finished all the novels; some of which are the best I’ve ever read.
August 14, 2020
A very well written, entertaining, clever, engaging, interesting short novel set on the day of the funeral of Eleanor, Patrick Melrose’s mother. The dialogue is witty in places, especially by the outrageous Nicholas Pratt, Eleanor’s friend. We learn about what happens to Eleanor’s fortune, and about Patrick and his relationship with his wife Mary.
Here are a come of examples of the author’s writing style:
‘Above all, she was a baby, not a ‘big baby’ like so many adults, but a small baby perfectly preserved in the picking jar of money, alcohol and fantasy.’
‘Thank goodness there were people who were happy with nothing, thought Julia, so that people like her (and everyone else she had ever met) could have more.’
Here are a come of examples of the author’s writing style:
‘Above all, she was a baby, not a ‘big baby’ like so many adults, but a small baby perfectly preserved in the picking jar of money, alcohol and fantasy.’
‘Thank goodness there were people who were happy with nothing, thought Julia, so that people like her (and everyone else she had ever met) could have more.’
August 10, 2020
Wish there were more stars.
January 23, 2018
It's hard to think of a better series of novels than St Aubyn's Melrose books, and they come to a typically brilliant conclusion in At Last.
The final installment centres around the funeral of Patrick's mother, Eleanor, and the following wake/party. It is possible to read At Last as a single volume, but without the layers added by the previous four books, it would not be the complete experience.
The funeral offer a chance for Melrose to reflect on the events of the previous four novels, and an opportunity for St Aubyn to gather together surviving characters for a final hurrah.
For Patrick, the funeral does generate grief, but also a form of release, of perhaps being at peace "at last" with the scars of his childhood. He begins to develop a greater understanding of Eleanor's character and why she failed to protect him from his father. There's no pat forgiveness, but some degree of comprehension.
At Last also sheds new light on earlier events, partly through flashback. We begin to understand the emotional rather than material reasons why Patrick had become so embittered about his mother's decision to hand the family's French holiday home to a New Age cult. We also get to experience anew the monstrous behaviour of his father.
Gathered around Patrick at the funeral are his now estranged wife Mary (who typically has still had to do all the funeral organisation); the odious Nicholas Pratt; as well as Eleanor's embittered and entitled sister Nancy. One of St Aubyn's skills is to breathe life into even minor characters.
There is much sharp observation and acerbic humour within the funeral and the party. But what also marks out St Aubyn's writing is his compassion. He never lets it lapse into sentimentality, or suggest his characters are on any kind of "journey", but there is humanity alongside the more acid observations.
And despite Patrick feeling some liberation from the past, his personal life remains messy. Separated from Mary and his children, he's staying sober but is living in a bedsit.
That's where we find him as the novel and series reaches its conclusion. It's not a moment of redemption as such, but given the dark events that overshadow all four volumes, the series ends with a glimmer of hope.
Benedict Cumberbatch is about to play Melrose in a TV adaptation. That may do them justice, but I suspect nothing will substitute for reading this extraordinary and memorable series of novels.
The final installment centres around the funeral of Patrick's mother, Eleanor, and the following wake/party. It is possible to read At Last as a single volume, but without the layers added by the previous four books, it would not be the complete experience.
The funeral offer a chance for Melrose to reflect on the events of the previous four novels, and an opportunity for St Aubyn to gather together surviving characters for a final hurrah.
For Patrick, the funeral does generate grief, but also a form of release, of perhaps being at peace "at last" with the scars of his childhood. He begins to develop a greater understanding of Eleanor's character and why she failed to protect him from his father. There's no pat forgiveness, but some degree of comprehension.
At Last also sheds new light on earlier events, partly through flashback. We begin to understand the emotional rather than material reasons why Patrick had become so embittered about his mother's decision to hand the family's French holiday home to a New Age cult. We also get to experience anew the monstrous behaviour of his father.
Gathered around Patrick at the funeral are his now estranged wife Mary (who typically has still had to do all the funeral organisation); the odious Nicholas Pratt; as well as Eleanor's embittered and entitled sister Nancy. One of St Aubyn's skills is to breathe life into even minor characters.
There is much sharp observation and acerbic humour within the funeral and the party. But what also marks out St Aubyn's writing is his compassion. He never lets it lapse into sentimentality, or suggest his characters are on any kind of "journey", but there is humanity alongside the more acid observations.
And despite Patrick feeling some liberation from the past, his personal life remains messy. Separated from Mary and his children, he's staying sober but is living in a bedsit.
That's where we find him as the novel and series reaches its conclusion. It's not a moment of redemption as such, but given the dark events that overshadow all four volumes, the series ends with a glimmer of hope.
Benedict Cumberbatch is about to play Melrose in a TV adaptation. That may do them justice, but I suspect nothing will substitute for reading this extraordinary and memorable series of novels.
February 12, 2014
Edward St. Aubyn is one of the top novelists of the 20th and, now the 21st centuries. His writing is superb. He crafts sentences brilliantly, so well, if fact, I find myself reading the same sentence over and over because it is so unusual and warms my Linguistics heart. But, this novel drove a point home to me. No matter how fantastically the wordsmithing is in a novel, you do need a plot.
Oh, this has a plot. The plot is a rehash of his trilogy! We meet everyone in those books again, but he never reminds you the role each of the characters played, or the events of those novels. They're all referred to by first names. Unfortunately, St. Aubyn has more characters in this novel than Tolstoy had in War and Peace. I found myself constantly flipping through the book to remind myself whom the character when he mentioned someone.
If you've read the entire Some Hope Trilogy, you've, in a sense already read At Last. If you haven't read the trilogy, you'll miss a lot of the allusions in At Last
Oh, this has a plot. The plot is a rehash of his trilogy! We meet everyone in those books again, but he never reminds you the role each of the characters played, or the events of those novels. They're all referred to by first names. Unfortunately, St. Aubyn has more characters in this novel than Tolstoy had in War and Peace. I found myself constantly flipping through the book to remind myself whom the character when he mentioned someone.
If you've read the entire Some Hope Trilogy, you've, in a sense already read At Last. If you haven't read the trilogy, you'll miss a lot of the allusions in At Last
May 25, 2012
Disappointing finale to the series, especially considering the good reviews that the book received. Still, St. Aubyn does manage to turn a phrase. Here are two quotes from the book that give a sense of his use of language and that can be applied to the novel itself. When describing Patrick's recently deceased mother: "Eleanor was like one of those amazing cocktails that make you wonder what motorway collision could have first combined gin, brandy, tomato juice, creme de menthe, and Cointreau into a single drink". And then at the funeral of the above: "Oh, Jesus, thought Patrick, let me out of here. He imagined himself disappearing through the floor with a shovel and some bunk-bed slats, the theme music of The Great Escape humming in the air." That was sort of how I felt through most of the book!
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