Parallel Lines
Edward St Aubyn
A brother and sister lost and found, in a novel that seizes your heart and enthrals your mind, from the author of the Patrick Melrose series.
‘We set off in opposite directions and walked around the world until we met, and I’m very pleased we have…’
It is summer. Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him with a fragile hold on reality and a hunger to connect with the mother who abandoned him. His therapist, Martin, also faces challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia’s tenuous relationship with her biological mother. Olivia, meanwhile, is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life.
Over a year, their fates collide in outrageous and poignant ways, revealing their destinies in a new light. Parallel Lines is a novel about connection, family, love, and the cascading consequences of our choices.
PRAISE FOR EDWARD ST AUBYN:
‘Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation’
ALAN HOLLINGHURST
‘I love Edward St Aubyn’
DONNA TARTT
‘Nothing can prepare you for the rich, acerbic comedy of St Aubyn’s world’
ZADIE SMITH
Product Details
About Edward St Aubyn
Reviews for Parallel Lines
DONNA TARTT Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation
ALAN HOLLINGHURST It is a novel rich in characters and perspectives… The story whips along… All the while, Parallel Lines is building towards a showdown that threatens to break its characters and their values. It doesn’t disappoint
Evening Standard
St Aubyn has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat
The Times
Nothing can prepare you for the rich, acerbic comedy of St Aubyn’s world
ZADIE SMITH A tale of analysis, art and family dysfunction… In a novel brimming with wordplay, Sebastian’s eagerness to make meaningful connections is affecting
Financial Times
Our purest living prose stylist
Guardian
Parallel Lines depicts characters whose hold on reality is fragile or fraught, but this novel’s hold on reality is sure and convincing and passionate… [It is] dressmaker-deft on adult sibling relationships, on patient-therapist challenges, on the surprises of middle-age, on the pressure to accept our circumstances
CAOILINN HUGHES, author of The Wild Laughter Witty, rich and provocative. One ravishingly elegant sentence follows another as the stories of these fascinating characters intertwine en route to a poignant and uplifting conclusion. Masterful
BEN HINSHAW, author of Exactly What You Mean Why did it take me so long to fall in love with the brilliant novels of Edward St Aubyn?
BRET EASTON ELLIS