Edward St Aubyn

At Last is the fifth and final instalment of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. As friends, relatives and foes trickle in to pay their final respects to his mother Eleanor, Patrick Melrose finds himself questioning whether a life without parents will be the liberation he has so long imagined. Yet as the memorial service ends and the family gathers one last time, amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current: the chance of some form of safety – at last.

At Last

Edward St. Aubyn

For Patrick Melrose, ‘family’ is more than a double-edged sword. As friends, relations and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor – an heiress who forsook the grandeur of her upbringing for ‘good works’, freely bestowed upon everyone but her own child – Patrick finds that his transition to orphanhood isn’t necessarily the liberation he had so long imagined. Yet as the service ends and the family gather for a final party, as conversations are overheard, danced around and concertedly avoided, amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current. And at the end of the day, alone in his rooftop bedsit, it seems to promise some form of safety, at last. One of the most powerful reflections on pain and acceptance, and the treacheries of family, ever written, At Lastis the brilliant culmination of the Melrose books. It is a masterpiece of glittering dark comedy and profound emotional truth.

This series is some of the most psychologically rich and engaging, not to mention dense, stuff I’ve ever read. Will reward many re-reads and I can’t wait. Just watched the first part of the Benedict miniseries and damn does it deliver. 

Gabe Cortez

Nadine 

Finally got around to reading this, after being deeply immersed in the trilogy of his other books last year. This review from the NY times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/boo...
Highlights some of the best parts of the novel.

It's far less of an emotional roller coaster than the other books and ends with a glimpse of maturity and compassion which makes an end to the saga. The earlier books I found a fascinating glimpse into the world of upper class England with all sorts of privilege and things that are assumed and taken for granted. The books are very very well written,and for that alone worth reading. But then you have to ask yourself about a society that gives rise to the characters in all their hideous reality and sustains them through generations. It's a bit about parenting, but a lot about how we care for ourselves (or not) once formal parenting is gone. And about letting go. The inability to let go of what we see as entitlements.

I'd advise reading the rest of the books first, in order, otherwise this one wouldn't make much sense. I suspect these books will become classics in their time.

Jason Porterfield

I adore the Patrick Melrose novels. This volume was a fitting conclusion to the quartet. I particularly appreciated his deft POV shifts and the skill with which he painted each character's inner life. Patrick's a mess, but so is everyone else. So are we all.

Laura

In the span of five months, I have read all of the Patrick Melrose novels, and it’s been a long journey. After thoroughly enjoying the first three books, I was disappointed with Mother’s Milk, having found Patrick’s older son to be a thoroughly uninteresting narrator. 

One of the things I found interesting when researching this series is that it was originally supposed to be a trilogy, with the concluding novel being Some Hope. But St Aubyn had the idea for Mother’s Milk and realized how much it suited the Patrick Melrose series so he decided to write that novel. And then he wrote At Last, likely because he now needed a conclusion for this new arc he had created with Mother’s Milk. That makes sense to me because there is a definite divide in the series. The original trilogy focuses on Patrick’s father, and these two new additions are about his mother. 

While I think I like the first three books more, there’s something very, well, rewarding about seeing Patrick grow up over the course of these novels and find a way to live with what happened to him as a child. While I never dealt with anything even remotely close to what Patrick had to, I still related to a lot of his feelings about life, and him trying to find his footing in a world that he had a hard time living in. The parts about suicide hit me hard, in a way that I wasn’t quite expecting. I think the thing that makes suicide so dangerous is that, like Patrick brought up with the Camus quote, it’s so hard to find reasons not to kill yourself. I’m happy Patrick found his reason not to kill himself, even if it took him five books to do so. Hopefully, that means I’ll be able to, too.

bernard black

Gavin

Jacob Mishook

Robert Hinchcliffe

THE FIFTH PATRICK MELROSE NOVEL As friends, relatives and foes trickle in to pay their final respects to his mother Eleanor, Patrick Melrose finds himself questioning whether a life without parents will be the liberation he has so long imagined. Yet as the memorial service ends and the family gathers one last time, amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current: the chance of some form of safety - at last.

At Last

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