by Edward St. Aubyn

In Edward St. Aubyn's three autobiographical novellas, Patrick Melrose must cope with a sadistic and sexually abusive father, his own destructive drug habit (a direct result), and the certainty that life will never improve--until, in the eponymous final novella, there seems to be a chance that it might, after all. St. Aubyn's portrait of upper-class decadence, a life of money and drugs, is impelled by a wickedly satirical vision but also, finally, by exactly what the title promises.