FROM THE
LISTENER ARCHIVE: ARTS & BOOKS
April
21-27 2007 Vol 208 No 3493
Family
& other animals
by Anthony Byrt
Edward St AubynÕs acclaimed Some Hope trilogy
told the story of the Melroses – a dysfunctional and abusive family of
fallen aristocrats. One of them – the drug-taking Patrick Melrose –
is back after a decade with a Ņvivid and disruptiveÓ mid-life crisis.
Most nuclear families carry within them the threat of
going thermal at some point. Edward St Aubyn is a modern master of the family
narrative, and although his earliest books deal with the serious consequences
of detachment, abuse and addiction, his latest story of family dysfunction,
MotherÕs Milk, teeters more delicately around a moment of meltdown.
St Aubyn carves a vivid and often very funny tale of
an intense young family pinballing through four consecutive summers and banging
together occasionally. MotherÕs Milk was a close contender for the 2006 Man
Booker Prize and many critics have proclaimed it one of the best works of
English fiction for several years. Importantly for its author, it is also
finding an audience to match such high praise, something his work has long
deserved.
MotherÕs Milk sees the return of Patrick Melrose, St
AubynÕs most significant invention. PatrickÕs first three appearances came in a
series of novellas that were completed by the mid-90s, then collected under the
title Some Hope: A Trilogy. It has been more than 10 years between Patrick
Melrose stories. On his return, Patrick is in his early forties and in trouble.
He works (notionally at least) as a barrister and is married to Mary, the
mother of their two sons, five-year-old Robert and newborn Thomas. ThomasÕs
arrival leads to a lockdown on marital affection, as MaryÕs panicky desire to
be a good mother sees her reject Patrick in favour of the infant. Even Robert
feels shut out; he admits to hating his younger brother, jealous of his proximity
to their mother, of his closeness to her breast and of his blissful lack of
language, which makes the world an unspoilt arena of new sensation and maternal
connection.
On top of all of this, PatrickÕs mother Eleanor is
decaying rapidly, losing her mind as she nears death. She has signed over her
property in the south of France – the place where Patrick grew up and his
only chance at a legacy – to an Irish quack-shaman with grand designs for
a new-age healing centre. None of this is particularly good news for Patrick,
who, facing the double trauma of his wifeÕs rejection and his motherÕs
disinheritance, drinks heavily, takes a lot of prescription drugs and embarks
half-heartedly on an affair with a former flame.
A mid-life crisis, then? ŅPatrick says at some point
during his insomnia, that yes, heÕs having a mid-life crisis,Ó St Aubyn says
carefully in the dry, elegant drawl that is often broken by pure laughter, Ņbut
then he refuses the idea, because a mid-life crisis is itself a kind of verbal
Temazepam, a way of tranquilising the experience by agreeing that itÕs a
clichˇ. So, yes he is, but he also isnÕt, because he continues to live it in a
vivid and disruptive way.Ó
St AubynÕs microscopic probings into the machinations
of family life have their roots in the Some Hope trilogy, a harrowing and
violent account of the once aristocratic Melrose familyÕs fall from grace. Its
first story, Never Mind, takes place in France when Patrick is a young boy. On
the first page, weÕre introduced to PatrickÕs father David, drowning ants in
his driveway. The family maid walks past, unsure whether David will stop her
for a long conversation, which he is prone to doing when she is, as at that
moment, carrying armfuls of heavy linen. He leaves her alone, this time, but almost
immediately has a flashback to an evening 12 years earlier, during which he had
made Eleanor, his wife and PatrickÕs mother, eat her dinner from the floor like
a dog.
David MelroseÕs malevolence is thus established and
not long after this, he rapes Patrick. This is the key moment in the trilogy,
the act that establishes PatrickÕs behaviour for the next three decades. Edmund
White has described David Melrose as one of the great villains of contemporary
literature, and with good reason: even after raping his son, he laments not so
much the act as the fact that he canÕt find anyone to disclose it to;
accustomed to hero-status from his peers, he canÕt think of a single person
with whom he can discuss this latest transgression.
This brutal, horrifying comedy is developed in the
second novella Bad News, in which Patrick, in his early twenties, is informed
of his fatherÕs death and travels to New York to retrieve his ashes. He is by
this stage a drug addict and flies Concorde so as not to be sober for too long,
and within hours of landing heads out on a drug binge that almost kills him.
Somehow though, he manages to return to London with his fatherÕs remains.
The final story, Some Hope, takes place when Patrick
is in his early thirties, clean and vaguely contemplating a career in law. He
is due to attend a party at a country home in Gloucestershire, with a guest
list that includes Princess Margaret. St Aubyn shifts seamlessly through the
minds of several vicious snobs before finally dismembering their vapidity with
a superb set-piece.
But rather than
simply displaying his skill for dialogue, the sequence forms a crucial
framework for the rest of the trilogy, illustrating a dehumanisation that is
institutional, an integral part of the community that produced the Melroses and
families like them.