by Edward St. Aubyn

In this follow-up to SOME HOPE, dysfunction afflicts the Melrose family for a second generation. Barrister Patrick Melrose doesn’t quite know how to handle fatherhood, fearing he will repeat the mistakes of his abusive parents, as the surviving one continues to offer him fresh insult: his mother wants to leave all of her considerable estate to her fraudulent guru, and asks her son to make the adjustments to her will. In addition, Patrick resents his wife Mary’s neglect in favor of their two sons, for her part, Mary feels utterly helpless and lost in the flood of responsibilities attendant on being a mother. Meanwhile, their young but precociously perceptive children take note of and comment on the deterioration of their parents’ marriage.