Never Mind

Magazine 'The act of investigative self-repair has all along been the underlying project of these extraordinary novels. It is the source of their urgent emotional intensity, and the determining principle of their construction. For all their brilliant social satire, they are closer to the tight, ritualistic poetic drama of another era than the expansive comic fiction of our own ... A terrifying, spectacularly entertaining saga' James Lasdun, Guardian 'His prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect. As a sketcher of character, his wit -- whether turned against pointless members of the aristocracy or hopeless crack dealers -- is ticklingly wicked. As an analyser of broken minds and tired hearts he is as energetic, careful and creative as the perfect shrink. And when it comes to spinning a good yarn, whether over the grand scale or within a single page of anecdote, he has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat' Melissa Katsoulis, The Times 'The Patrick Melrose novels can be read as the navigational charts of a mariner desperate not to end up in the wretched harbor from which he embarked on a voyage that has led in and out of heroin addiction, alcoholism, marital infidelity and a range of behaviors for which the term 'self-destructive' is the mildest of euphemisms. Some of the most perceptive, elegantly written and hilarious novels of our era... Remarkable' Francine Prose, New York Times 'St Aubyn conveys the chaos of emotion, the confusion of heightened sensation, and the daunting contradictions of intellectual endeavour with a force and subtlety that have an exhilarating, almost therapeutic effect' Francis Wyndham, New York Review of Books 'A masterpiece. Edward St Aubyn is a writer of immense gifts' Patrick McGrath 'Irony courses through these pages like adrenaline ... Patrick's intelligence processes his predicaments into elegant, lucid, dispassionate, near-aphoristic formulations ... Brimming with witty flair, sardonic perceptiveness and literary finesse' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times 'A humane meditation on lives blighted by the sins of the previous generation. St Aubyn remains among the cream of British novelists' Sunday Times 'The main joy of a St Aubyn novel is the exquisite clarity of his prose, the almost uncanny sense he gives that, in language as in mathematical formulae, precision and beauty invariably point to truth ... Characters in St Aubyn novels are hyper-articulate, and the witty dialogue is here, as ever, one of the chief joys' Suzi Feay, Financial Times 'One of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade.' Michael Chabon, LA Times