My reading 'find' of the year so far is the sequence of five Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn. They are, in order: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk and At Last. The first three are now bound up as a trilogy under the title of the third, Some Hope.
At the centre of the sequence is the inner and outer life of Patrick Melrose from childhood to middle age. He has an abusive father (sexually and in every other way) - one of the most unpleasant parental figures in fiction, and that's against a lot of competition - and a weak mother who either sees nothing or looks the other way, being a victim of abuse herself from the same quarter. With this background Patrick's subsequent story moves through drug addiction, alcoholism, disinheritance and, predictably, difficuties in his relationships and his attempts to cope with the legacy of his childhood.
St Aubyn's writing is sharp, clear and often funny. It skilfully puts together thoughts about his own experience with brief psychological and philosophical reflections by the way. This is a male writer who knows how to write about the nuances of personal relationship. He also writes with great perception about how the world can look to a young boy. There is something of the feel of Anthony Powell in the way he handles his cast of characters; they travel through the years, appearing and reappearing in the five books at different stages of their lives. The prose is rich in irony, and notes of bitterness are relieved by a liberating mockery directed at some well-chosen targets, as Patrick fights against a painful past and for some form of resolution.
