At Last

US: Picador USA, 2014. Very Good. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Time Magazine Best Book of the Year An Esquire Best Book of Year "Beautifully wrought . . . Brutally funny and sad."-Vanity Fair The fifth novel in Edward St. Aubyn's stunning cycle about his protagonist Patrick Melrose. The last four novels in the cycle are available in The Pat rick Melrose Novels. Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as "our purest living prose stylist" and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called "the most brilliant English novelist of his generation," is a work of glittering social comedy, profou nd emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works-Never Mind, Ba d News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk-are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, "family" has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final res pects to his mother, Eleanor. An American heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for "good wo rks" freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questio ning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the li beration he had so long imagined. The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety. . . at last.