Mother’s Milk
Patrick Melrose becomes a father, and a family's damage passes to the next generation in St Aubyn's comic novel.
The fourth of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. Patrick is now a husband and father, watching his wife give herself over to their young sons while his mother hands the family house in France to a New Age foundation. It is a sharp comedy about inheritance, motherhood and the damage passed between generations, and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006.
Recommended by 1 Person
Oliver James
Mother’s Milk, I suppose, is about the difficulties for mothers of providing good care for babies and small children in a societies where mothering has the status slightly less than that of a street sweeper. At the same time it shows that if the care you received when you were young was unresponsive it leaves you feeling very empty and dissatisfied and emotionally deprived and makes it hard for you to relate well to partners.
Interview · July 2010
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