Book description
For Patrick Melrose, ‘family’ is more than a double-edged sword. As
friends, relations and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his
mother, Eleanor - an heiress who forsook the grandeur of her upbringing
for ‘good works’, freely bestowed upon everyone but her own child -
Patrick finds that his transition to orphanhood isn’t necessarily the
liberation he had so long imagined.
Yet as the service ends and the family gather for a final party, as
conversations are overheard, danced around and concertedly avoided,
amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the
rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current. And at the end of the
day, alone in his rooftop bedsit, it seems to promise some form of
safety, at last.
One of the most powerful reflections on pain and acceptance, and the
treacheries of family, ever written, At Last
is the brilliant culmination of the Melrose books. It is a masterpiece
of glittering dark comedy and profound emotional truth. Edward St
Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He is the author of the novels A
Clue to the Exit
and On the Edge
, and the trilogy Some Hope
. Mother's Milk
was the winner of the Prix Femina Etranger 2007.
