Patrick Melrose Novels (St. Aubyn)

Discussion Questions
1. Why does Eleanor submit to David in Never Mind? Does he submit to anything (other than the memory of his father)?

2. As five-year-old Patrick is being brutalized by his father in chapter seven, how does his imagination rescue him? What effect does this have on his perception of reality in the subsequent books?

3. In the closing passages of Never Mind, Eleanor watches Bridget clumsily try to escape for a tryst with Barry, "just going down the drive as if she were free” (page 129). If it weren’t for the re of money and status, would all the primary characters be free?

4. What makes Edward St. Aubyn’s depiction of addiction in Bad News unique? How did you react as you watched Patrick juggle Quaaludes, speed, and heroin, culminating in the other world of the Key Club?

5. What various comforts do Anne, George, and Pierre offer Patrick after he comes face-to-face with his father’s “misplaced” corpse?

6. In Some Hope, Princess Margaret natters on about child abuse, atheism, the failure of socialism, the charms of Noël Coward, and the ways in which the ambassador’s sauce splatter is a sign of egregious disrespect for the crown. In this infamous party scene, is she the only one being spoofed?

7. Patrick tells Anne that his grandmother’s Great War diary (page 429) led him to believe that his father was sexually abused as a child. Did you agree with Patrick or with Anne as they debated the role of forgiveness?

8. What was it like to experience birth from wise Robert’s point of view in Mother’s Milk? How do Robert and Thomas complete St. Aubyn’s meditation on sons and mothers?

9. The quartet ends with Patrick in the role of parent as his mother confronts euthanasia (after signing over Saint-Nazaire to the Foundation). What did Eleanor teach him about women? How do these lessons play out  with Julia and Mary?

10. St. Aubyn gives us recurring images of an Alsatian dog chasing Patrick (page 132 and 511) and describes David as “no more endearing than a chained Alsatian” (page 156). Who and what continue to hound Patrick long after his father’s death?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)