`The wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse and the waspishness of Waugh. A joy' Zadie Smith, Harpers `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 ... Read morenovels are hyper-articulate, and the witty dialogue is here, as ever, one of the chief joys' Suzi Feay, Financial 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 '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 masterpiece. Edward St Aubyn is a writer of immense gifts' Patrick McGrath `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 `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 `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 `St Aubyn puts an entire family under a microscope, laying bare all its painful, unavoidable complexities. At once epic and intimate, appalling and comic, the novels are masterpieces, each and every one' Maggie O'Farrell `Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation' Alan Hollinghurst `Wonderful caustic wit . . . Perhaps the very sprightliness of the prose - its lapidary concision and moral certitude - represents the cure for which the characters yearn. So much good writing is in itself a form of health' Edmund White, Guardian `I've loved Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels. Read them all, now' David Nicholls `Blackly comic, superbly written fiction . . . His style is crisp and light; his similes exhilarating in their accuracy . . . St Aubyn writes with luminous tenderness of Patrick's love for his sons' Caroline Moore, Sunday Telegraph `From the very first lines I was completely hooked . . . By turns witty, moving and an intense social comedy, I wept at the end but wouldn't dream of giving away the totally unexpected reason' Antonia Fraser, Sunday Telegraph `St Aubyn is a staggeringly good prose stylist and evidently has a big and open heart' The Times `Mother's Milk has the cerebral excitement and piercing funniness of St Aubyn at his brilliant best' Tatler `The bravura quality of St Aubyn's performance is irresistible. Brilliant' Sunday Telegraph 'The Melrose novels are a masterwork for the twenty-first century' Alice Sebold `The Melrose sequence is now clearly one of the major achievements of contemporary British fiction' Evening Standard `So good - so fantastically well written, profound and humane . . . it is heartstopping' Rachel Cooke, Observer Show Less