Edward St. Aubyn

Set among the vertiginous contrasts of luxury and squalor which characterize New York City, this second volume of a trilogy is a harrowing but often funny portrait of obsessive drug use. It is the sequel to Never Mind, which won a Betty Trask Award.

Bad News

Thaddeus Cortez

Prashant Prasad

A compelling and amazingly written protagonist with an interesting perspective on the effect of our childhood. A quick-witted and self-aware style which was very enjoyable to read. Edward St. Aubyn has made the upper English class palpable with such a range of characters which centre on Patrick Melrose's tragic (and integrally formative) life/

Laura

If Evelyn Waugh wrote Trainspotting. Fantastic.

Gabe Cortez

Hannah Swithinbank

Caroline

bernard black

Gavin

wren

Robert Hinchcliffe

Edward St Aubyn

The second of the Melrose novels. Bad News takes Patrick into his early twenties. Constrained to fly to New York to collect his monstrous father's ashes, fully in the grip of massive addiction, he endures a weekend hunting for drugs and attempting to avoid figures from David Melrose's life. This is a brilliant portrait of socialite Manhattan and its dark avenues, and of a hallucinatory, desperate attempt to hide from the encroaching past.

Neta Steingart

Liam Byrne 

James Haliburton

Klaudia Nörenberg

Silvia Morgantini

Kelsey Laird

Bad News is the second of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father’s ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick’s remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge – desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past. Bad News was originally published, along with Never Mind and Some Hope, as part of a three book omnibus also called Some Hope.

Bad News

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