Mother's Milk

Jun 28, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to K.D. by: Booker shortlist; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2010)

Shelves: 1001-non-core, booker, family-drama, british

This book challenged the convention of believability in using POV. The book opens with a chapter narrated by a five-year old boy, Robert Melrose thinking and having insights of that of an intelligent adult. At first, it threw me off. Unbelievable. Who did St. Aubyn think he was? Augusten Burroughs? It took me a while before I reopened the book. I said to myself, there must be something in here. This was shortlisted in 2005 Booker Prize and a recent addition to the 1001 Books You Must Read Before...more This book challenged the convention of believability in using POV. The book opens with a chapter narrated by a five-year old boy, Robert Melrose thinking and having insights of that of an intelligent adult. At first, it threw me off. Unbelievable. Who did St. Aubyn think he was? Augusten Burroughs? It took me a while before I reopened the book. I said to myself, there must be something in here. This was shortlisted in 2005 Booker Prize and a recent addition to the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. So, there must be something here.

I am glad I persevered. This is a strangely beautiful book.

It's about the effect of mothers to their children. All mothers are human being and they are different from each other. There are two types of mothers here: the one who gives everything away and the one who keeps everything to herself. In the center of these mothers is the Melrose family. The father, Patrick is the son of the mother who gives everything away. This mother is even thinking of giving their house to a shaman whose spirituality has affected the her in her dying days. Patrick hates his mother so he channels that hate to his wife, Mary by having a mistress. Mary in turn, retreats and distances herself from Patrick by focusing her full attention to his sons, the 5-y/o Robert and the newly born, Thomas. The other mother is Mary's, this is the mother that keeps everything to herself and Mary also hates her so she makes sure to be the opposite: a very loving mother to her sons despite being a distant wife.

The plot is not really new. In fact, I prefer the emotion and the style of a similar book, the one I read and enjoyed last year, Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved. However, there is no death here so there is no earth-shattering event that turns the world of the characters upside down. Everything seems to be hinged in subtlety and the selling proposition is really on how clever small children can be compared to their parents.

Those narration of the 5-y/o Robert is something that should be the reason why this book is a must-read. In real life, according to Wiki, the author of this book, Edward St. Aubyn, was raped by a male relative when he was a child. Prior to this novel, he wrote an autobiographical trilogy, Some Hope where he wrote the details on this rape experience. That book is said to be written with strong paternal viewpoint. This book, Mother's Milk balances the view as it has strong maternal viewpoint.

I think the reason why St. Aubyn gave strong intellectual adult viewpoint to the 5-y/o Robert was to show that a small boy can have the awareness of an adult and that any child maltreatment or molestation has a strong effect to the life and personality of a person. Those sad experiences will stay with the wrong child as long as he or she lives.

If are a writer, and you'd like to see a strange (because it challenges conventions) use of POV, give this book a try.
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May 18, 2008 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

IMHO, top-notch writing. His sentences and descriptions are often a joy to read. An odd balance of dry, acidic, sardonic humor and genuine compassion.

Book Description:
"A New York Times Notable Book, Mother’s Milk is a brilliantly stylish and witty novel by a master of modern British fiction. Widely acclaimed in the United States and the UK, Mother’s Milk follows the Melroses, the same family featured in St. Aubyn’s trilogy, Some Hope. First we meet Robert, who provides an exceptionally droll an...more

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Sep 12, 2010 Stephanie (Stepping out of the Page) rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: disliked, read-in-2010, realistic-fiction, adult-fiction, awful-cover, books-i-own

A book that i'm most glad to have finished reading. From the beginning, I was very confused of the characters and their situations and there was still a lack of clarity even towards the end. The story wasn't intriguing and it felt as though I was just skimming through the story - I didn't feel connected to it and I didn't get absorbed in it at all, feeling nothing towards the several characters. The age and maturity of Robert did not seem right at all It did improve about half way through, but i...more

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May 17, 2013 Ben Loory rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

He closed his eyes and let the pool-side inferno dissipate. After a few hours of other people, he had to get the pile-up of impressions out of him one way or another; by doing impersonations, or working out how things worked, or just trying to empty his mind. Otherwise the impressions built up to a critical density and he felt as if he was going to explode.

Sometimes, when he was lying in bed, a single word like 'fear' or 'infinity' flicked the roof off the house and sucked him up into the night,...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Tim Heaney rated it 4 of 5 stars

Welp, four down, one to go. I honestly don't see myself rushing out to read "At Last", the fifth and final novel of the Patrick Melrose cycle. Tis a shame, I was quite looking forward to these books. John Updike's Rabbit series is a touchstone for me, and the idea of a somewhat similar series, but one that follows a contemporary man from childhood to middle age, was immensely appealing.
What I could not ever entirely get past, though, was how awful EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THESE FUCKING BOOKS is....more

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Jan 31, 2013 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Witty and biting prose tells the observations of members of the Melrose family. Patrick Melrose, husband to Mary, is self-absorbed, sulky, and too often either drunk or hung-over. Having driven his wife out of their bed and into the company of their two young sons, he ogles waitresses, beds an ex-girlfriend who, with her own son from a previous failed relationship, repeatedly stays with Patrick, Mary, and the children on their annual holiday vacation at the family estate belonging to Eleanor, in...more Witty and biting prose tells the observations of members of the Melrose family. Patrick Melrose, husband to Mary, is self-absorbed, sulky, and too often either drunk or hung-over. Having driven his wife out of their bed and into the company of their two young sons, he ogles waitresses, beds an ex-girlfriend who, with her own son from a previous failed relationship, repeatedly stays with Patrick, Mary, and the children on their annual holiday vacation at the family estate belonging to Eleanor, in the South of France. Patrick generally disgraces himself in nearly every way imaginable. Author St. Aubyn reveals the inner-world and outer-world observations of the Melrose children, sometimes from birth on, in a manner both intimate and hilarious.

We see the relationships between the mothers and their disenchanted but enmeshed offspring over four generations. Eleanor's mother married a highborn gold-digger, who bequeathed a fortune in valuable objects to a nephew. Patrick's mother, Eleanor, declines to leave her property to her own son, giving it instead to a new-age "foundation" run by a former nursing home attendant. When Eleanor herself is in a nursing home, the man declines to even visit her. Mary's mother, Kettle, becomes increasingly flattered by the same guru, and is incapable and disinterested in having her grandchildren visit her, even for an afternoon. While interpreting and condemning the treatment by each mother of her own children, those children re-interpret and repeat those actions. Mothers seem to have been inflicted onto their children, resented, incapable of understanding, affection, or acceptance. Neither mothers nor children share their genuine feelings with one another, Mary and Patrick preferring remarks behind their mothers' backs, and their mothers responding to the sycophancy offered by the director of the foundation, organized, ostensibly, to explore rituals and celebrate emotional truth and insight. Even the two young boys make acute observations about their grandmothers and the guru, but the elder seems to fade into the background while the younger flies into stories about his imaginary friends. At last Patrick and Mary abandon attempts to connect with their mothers, Patrick gives up drinking and begins to resemble an adult, and the reader may hope the next generation of Melroses will fare better than their predecessors(less)

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Aug 04, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Judging by the goodreads reviews (which are usually very reliable), this book seems to have been mis-marketed. Readers complain that the characters are unpleasant (which you should know going in, I admit) and that St. Aubyn is 'too much of a stylist,' which sounds to me like saying a composer is 'too musical' or a basketball player is 'too athletic.' From a straight description, you might think this is akin to, say Gerard Woodward's semi-autobiographical trilogy: addiction, family issues, well-w...more Judging by the goodreads reviews (which are usually very reliable), this book seems to have been mis-marketed. Readers complain that the characters are unpleasant (which you should know going in, I admit) and that St. Aubyn is 'too much of a stylist,' which sounds to me like saying a composer is 'too musical' or a basketball player is 'too athletic.' From a straight description, you might think this is akin to, say Gerard Woodward's semi-autobiographical trilogy: addiction, family issues, well-written etc. From the blurbs, you might think it's a soap opera (Sam Lipsyte couldn't do better than 'harrowing entertainment'? I guess it's 'entertainment' if you assume that serious art is only produced in American MFA programs).

So, prospective reader, know that St. Aubyn's work is a salad, and that the ingredients are:

* Proust's essayistic novel form. As with Proust, you have to read carefully.
* Wilde's utterly unrealistic, yet brilliant, dialogue. As with Wilde, he's sometimes too clever for his own good.
* Waugh's ambivalent upper class satire.
* Richard Yates' beautifully styled misanthropy. As with Yates, it can all get a little tiring.

This is not to say he's the next Proust or Wilde, of course. But he's at least on a level with Yates.

This novel is beautifully and intelligently crafted. The opening section - told through the eyes of a 5 year old - should be ridiculously quirky, but is one of the best thirty or so pages published so far this century in English. St Aubyn clearly knows that the whole thing could be disastrous, and plays around with this fact. The shifting points of view throughout the novel are quite knowing, as well; St Aubyn refuses to insult his readers' intelligence by dumbing his work down and using old moves from the realism rulebook. At the same time, he holds on to what is valuable in the realistic tradition: a respect for the world outside of literature, the great potential of ironic narration, and the ability to put his readers into perspectives they ordinarily would not take up.

In short: an almost ideal blend of self-reflection, social thought and artistry.

The prose is so clear that it's often too easy to read: take your time, and try to understand exactly what's going on. It helps to have read the other books in the series, but it's probably not necessary. If you know this stuff going in, you'll hopefully get more out of the book than some reviewers seem to have done. (less)

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Jul 20, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 31, 2011 Sandra Lawson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first novel I've read by Edward St Aubyn but was captivated by his style and wit. Although Mother's Milk is one of a series of stories, there is no need to have read the predecessors as it stands on its own perfectly. The title refers to the relationships between mothers and their children, and these bonds are analysed and explored throughout the novel.

The writer veers between perspectives, writing from the viewpoints of several of the novel's characters. My greatest enjoyment came f...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Kirstie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people interested in parenthood, classism, euthanasia, Brits

This book is at times rather wickedly funny in its derision towards upper class parents and their cluelessness. At the same time, there's a bit too much self pitying amongst the middle class who don't seem to realize how well off they still are in comparison to most of the parents in the world at large. It's a rather sad statement on inheritance and euthanasia as well. The relationships are all strained and the plot events are at times a little too predictable. Still, there are some really funny...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Robert Ronsson rated it 3 of 5 stars

We meet the characters in Mother’s Milk, through the eyes of Robert, the elder son. He is watching his parents’ marriage creaking under the strain of seeing their inheritance spirited away by a shamanic Irish rogue. Robert, only recently out of nappies, remembers his birth vividly and is precocious enough to understand the nuances of the adult conversations supposedly passing over his head.
This contradiction between the protagonist’s age and his mature thought provides the early comedy and it wa...more We meet the characters in Mother’s Milk, through the eyes of Robert, the elder son. He is watching his parents’ marriage creaking under the strain of seeing their inheritance spirited away by a shamanic Irish rogue. Robert, only recently out of nappies, remembers his birth vividly and is precocious enough to understand the nuances of the adult conversations supposedly passing over his head.
This contradiction between the protagonist’s age and his mature thought provides the early comedy and it was, perhaps, too difficult for St Aubyn to sustain this device. Thus, in the middle sections, the story moves forward using the parents’ viewpoints. Here the conflicts are given full rein and St Aubyn is particularly good (as good as Tom Wolfe) in describing a character’s implosion.
The viewpoint switches again for the final section as the family’s disintegration gathers pace. In a metaphor for the family, the matriarch, Eleanor, approaches death and provides the ultimate solution for everybody’s perceived ills, ‘do nothing’.
The changing viewpoint could be disconcerting but St Aubyn manages the process seamlessly. Putting precocious children centre stage is a risk – not the least because readers will find it difficult to like the all-knowing Robert – and there are times when the extent of the child’s understanding is inconsistent and the illusion breaks down. Nevertheless it works well as a device to find humour in humdrum adult behaviour.
St Aubyn’s descriptions work best when he sees the world through the father’s, Patrick’s, eyes. This is the most sure-footed section but inconsistency lurks here too, with one conversation between Patrick and his therapist friend, Johnny, reading like the dialogue from a Noel Coward play that was axed for being too stilted.
This then is a curate’s egg of a book. It is a manuscript in need of an editor willing to confront the author over the aberrations and the occasional poor choice, like this simile: ‘I’m going to help with lunch,’ said regretful, duty bound Patrick, bolting across the lawn like a swimmer hurrying to the surface after too long a dive.’ When you read a sentence so flawed it ejects you from the illusion like a drill sergeant tossing a sleeping recruit out of bed, you know the script should have been through the editorial process one more time.
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Apr 29, 2010 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: big-white-square

Really enjoyed this! It's clever, funny ... but it loses a star because the author faithfully touches all the familiar moans of British anti-Americanism. Americans are fat and can't fit into aeroplane seats! American food is revolting, and the pizzas not as good as European ones! American TV is mindless! Baseball is boring! Everyone who works in the American service industry pretends to be cheerful! The American approach to health and safety is infantilising! American millionaires are vulgar and...more Really enjoyed this! It's clever, funny ... but it loses a star because the author faithfully touches all the familiar moans of British anti-Americanism. Americans are fat and can't fit into aeroplane seats! American food is revolting, and the pizzas not as good as European ones! American TV is mindless! Baseball is boring! Everyone who works in the American service industry pretends to be cheerful! The American approach to health and safety is infantilising! American millionaires are vulgar and have vulgar gardens! Americans support a nuclear Israel! Americans are always suing each other over the littlest inconveniences! American hotels have machines that “ejaculate” ice-cubes! (I’m not sure why this last one is bad). They'll love it in The New Statesman.

"'our water tank burst and flooded the apartment downstairs. Our neighbours are suing us, so we're suing the plumbers who only put the tank in last year. The plumbers are suing the tank company for defective design. And the residents are suing the building, even though they're all on vacation, because the water was cut off for two days instead of two hours, which caused them a lot of mental stress in Tuscany and Nantucket.'
'Gosh,' said Mary. 'What’s wrong with mopping up and getting a new water tank?'
'That is so English,' said Sally, delighted by Mary's quaint stoicism."
The first part would be funny if I didn't think a Guardian reader was delighting friends with this as a "true story". The second part is only forgivable if St. Aubyn isn't English.

"'I was just telling your parents they ought to take you to see the real Father Christmas,' said, Jilly, dishing out the food. ‘Concorde from Gatwick in the morning, up to Lapland,"
Hadn’t Jilly heard of the Paris crash?! Concorde was grounded for the rest of 2000.

"'Raggie with a label,' he sobbed. She handed him a Harrington square with the label still on it. A raggie without a label was not just unconsoling, but doubly upsetting because of its tantalizing resemblance to the ones which still had labels."
I really don't know what a Harrington square is. Did I miss something?

"Illness had blown her apart like a dandelion clock. He had wondered if he would end up like that, a few seeds stuck to a broken stem."

"Whereas the London parks he knew seemed to insist on nature, Central Park insisted on recreation."(less)

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Feb 20, 2012 Robert Whittaker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mother's Milk is a sequel to Some Hope, St Aubyn's 1990s trilogy, which presents the Melrose family in all its pathetic and venomous decadence. In Some Hope, the father, David, is a doctor who almost never sees patients, an aesthete and penniless member of the gentry who has married a rich American. "By marrying Eleanor he had obliterated the poverty which constituted his great social weakness." In their house in Provence (in the village of Lacoste, where the Marquis de Sade's ruined chateau spr...more Mother's Milk is a sequel to Some Hope, St Aubyn's 1990s trilogy, which presents the Melrose family in all its pathetic and venomous decadence. In Some Hope, the father, David, is a doctor who almost never sees patients, an aesthete and penniless member of the gentry who has married a rich American. "By marrying Eleanor he had obliterated the poverty which constituted his great social weakness." In their house in Provence (in the village of Lacoste, where the Marquis de Sade's ruined chateau sprawls), David lives surrounded by "the spoils of Eleanor's matriarchal American family", drawings by Guardi and Tiepolo, Piazetta and Novelli. David is as cruel if not as inventive and inexhaustible as his great predecessor at Lacoste; his wife is more consciously self-destructive than any Justine.

David, who has Dorian Gray's gift of remaining facially unmarked by his vices, beats and buggers his little son, Patrick. He makes his wife crawl on the floor and eat out of a dog bowl, or orders her to eat ripe fallen figs from the ground in front of guests. He tortures the maid by engaging her in protracted conversation when her aching arms are full of a heavy burden. When he's not mistreating his nearest and dearest, David smokes opium or exchanges bitchy remarks with his appalling guests from England.

Little Patrick, not surprisingly, grows up to be a heroin addict and a pretty miserable specimen. The great event of his early adulthood is his father's death, which he greets with mixed feelings. When Patrick is "grieving" and high on heroin at a gentlemen's club, he is forced to contemplate a menu: "He sat astonished in front of the menu, as if he had never seen one before. There were pages of dead things - cows, shrimps, pigs, oysters, lambs - stretched out like a casualty list, accompanied by a brief description of how they had been treated since they died - skewered, grilled, smoked, and boiled. Christ, if they thought he was going to eat these things they must be mad."

Much of the trilogy benefits from this Mars-eye view of the world, what the Russian formalists called "defamiliarisation". Paradoxically, if existence itself is observed from a great distance, Patrick's privileged milieu is very much seen with an insider's view of social foibles and rituals. The last section of Some Hope is as funny as anything in Waugh, and as astute about the micro-politics of status as the great Margaret Thatcher scene in Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. I laughed out loud reading many of the exchanges, some of them with Princess Margaret. A character speaks of his AA meetings: "'I've found more genuine love and kindness in those meetings than I've seen in all the fashionable drawing rooms of London.' 'Well, that's not saying much,' said Ali. 'You could say the same thing about Billingsgate fish market.'" Of course a novel is not made out of witty dialogue. The subtext of Some Hope in its entirety is Patrick's relationship with his father, and even in the midst of a country weekend the young man is rethinking his love and his hate for the dead patriarch.

Mother's Milk takes up this theme in a new key. Now Patrick is married and, like his father, in a profession he doesn't really practise. He is troubled by the possibility that he may be passing along to his children the taint of his poisoned rapport with his father. Patrick's wife, Mary, is also so consumed by her fears of repeating with her sons the mistakes her cold-blooded mother made with her that she abandons her husband altogether in favour of the role of a 24-hour-a-day nanny. "Patrick was always saying that their erotic, conversational and social lives were over, that they were just parental bureaucrats."

The burdens of self-consciousness (in Patrick but also in his older son, Robert) can be excruciating. Patrick is so concerned with shaping Robert's mind that he forgets to let the child play. Mary is so committed to her children that she forgoes her natural love of solitude: "Neglected meanings piled up like unopened letters. She knew they contained ever more threatening reminders that her life was unexamined." Robert reflects back to Patrick the older man's own inflamed self-consciousness: "Even if he was an affectionate father, even if he wasn't making the gross mistakes his parents had made, the vigilance he invested in the task created another level of tension, a tension which Robert had picked up."

Much of the action of the book involves Patrick's mother's estate back in Provence. Though it is in a state of decay, the suburbs are encroaching on the grounds and a highway has been built nearby, it remains a prize, especially since the disposal of an inheritance is always a final expression of parental love in the eyes of the anguished heirs. Eleanor is still alive but confused and angry and beset by Alzheimer's. She is in the hands of an Irish guru-charlatan named Seamus who speaks in bromides and mystical nonsense while advancing his own interests with the deadly concentration of a champion chess player. Patrick launches caustic remarks at Seamus, who pretends not to understand them - until he consolidates his possession over the house and evicts Patrick.

A spoiled-brat whininess sometimes irritates the reader, at least this democratic American. Chalk it up to national character, but at times I thought that if Patrick invested half the energy he devoted to regaining his lost family fortune to earning a new one he'd be a far richer and happier man; or if he redirected some of the exquisite sympathy he shows himself on to the boors and philistines surrounding him he'd be better company and a bit more sane.

But any objection one could feel toward Patrick he has already anticipated in his exacerbated self-awareness and self-contempt. And if Patrick were more charitable we'd be deprived of the wonderful caustic wit of his observations. I found that even this relentlessly cheerful American was willing to suppress his urge to fix everything and rectify wrongs in order to indulge in the impure and eloquent pleasures of failure and malice. At its worst Mother's Milk might make one wish Freud had never existed to dream up his infernal idea of the lock-step generational perpetuation of neuroses. At its best - and most of the time this closely worked, sparkling novel is at its best - we are grateful that so much wit and attentiveness has been lavished on these slightly spoiled darlings and their navel-gazing offspring. Perhaps the very sprightliness of the prose - its lapidary concision and moral certitude - represents the cure for which the characters yearn. So much good writing is in itself a form of health.(less)

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Oct 29, 2012 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars

The fourth installment in St. Aubyn's Melrose novel takes us to an older Patrick Melrose married and the father of two children. Melrose trys to protect his children from the horrors of his own childhood. He is largely successful in this effort at least as it impacts the children however the Melrose family Patrick and his wife Mary suffer greatly as their marriage flounders and Patrickreintroduces himself to alcohol abuse and infidelity. Patrick further wrestles with his love hate ,mostly hate r...more

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Apr 05, 2010 Reuben Alcatraz rated it 4 of 5 stars

You know how sometimes people complain about unremittingly dour contemporary novels where all the characters are unlikable assholes? Well, this one's really good! Rather than tacking away from the cynicism with heartwarming flashes of goodness (gag), Aubyn jibes, as it were, pointing the helm directly into the maelstrom of misanthropy, and the result is guaranteed to make your family look good in comparison.

This book is a very banal, rather pastoral look at family of narcissists. It's probably...more

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May 22, 2007 Adam rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Didn't like this at all. Not read the others in the saga, but don't think that's why i didn't like it.

Basically, Main character's mother is not going to leave him the country house in France. Well, we all know how that feels, don't we? Mummy, my champagne's warm.

Also fouund St Aubyn to be too muuch of a stylist for me, and his subject of upper middle class, middle age doubt too interior and I didn't connect.

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Oct 30, 2012 Ubik 2.0 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature

La famiglia Melrose è un'opera che si regge interamente sulla grande capacità del suo autore di analizzare in profondità la psicologia dei suoi personaggi e di metterli a confronto costruendo dialoghi curatissimi, particolare talento di cui gli scrittori inglesi sembrano detenere il segreto.

Per contro la trama è quasi completamente assente, privata di fatto di momenti drammatici, di eventi eccezionali e di svolte impreviste. La narrazione è scandita dal succedersi di quattro estati consecutive c...more

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Dec 10, 2010 Kirsty Darbyshire rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book

Loved this. It's on the Booker Prize shortlist; it had the longest odds when I first looked but now I've read it the odds have shortened. At least that's how it looks from here.

Fabulous family story dealing, as the title implies, with mothers; the beginnings and the ends of lives, and the complications in between. Fabulously readable from the first page. I liked the changing viewpoints, long sections to start with and then muddling up as the story got more involved. I didn't like some of the cha...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Vicky rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am very impressed by this book and already plan to read the next title - "At last". I understood that there are 3 books but I started from the 2nd one. Written in a smart and funny way, this is a story of a family, where husband is too intellectual for his own good and the wife is to motherly to be someone else in this marriage. It is all about mothers and sons, life and death, families and freedom from it. The two sons are interesting personalities, living in a world of childhood but too invo...more

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May 17, 2013 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Once again, I look at the people who choose the Booker Prize and think "Really?" The themes in this book are amazing, except that I really could have done without the shift in narrators. The earlier books felt stronger, more focused.

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Mar 18, 2012 Martin Walsh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The fourth of the five Patrick Melrose novels, this one tells of Patrick’s two young sons, failing marriage, adultery, and deepening alcoholism, among other things; the underlying theme, as is suggested by the ironic title, is the power of mothers--Patrick’s own, his wife’s, his wife as mother. The writing is caustic, elegant, funny, and intensely readable, about what are mostly dark subjects, with a bon mot on almost every page. In the earlier novels the Melrose family was established as a blue...more

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Aug 27, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Whew...if you start the St Aubyn (what is the word for 1 after a trilogy?) series at the first book and read through, the character's journey from abuse to drugs to misanthropy to redemption is unlike anything I've ever read. It's on a par with Waugh for meanness and wit and flow - and that's high praise - but unlike Waugh he has a genuine conscience and wants to understand his and his character's processes. The degradation and deep amusement at the worst aspects of everyone in the first four bo...more

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Jan 13, 2012 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Precocious children, dysfunctional parents, inheritance, dementia, alcoholism, motherhood, shamanism: there is a lot crammed into this slice of life from the one-wealthy Melrose family. St.Aubyn handles different viewpoints with ease. His prose has a remarkable quality, as if the words are chosen with an assurance that defies contradiction. This confidence which is both linguistic and stylistic sweeps you inside the head of a stressed husband, an over-protective mother and even a new-born baby w...more

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May 15, 2012 Megan Henrich rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've often felt nostalgia for a child-like imagination, and this book reminded me how powerful and pervasive imagination really is. We tend to cling to things, forgetting their downsides (and certainly this book shows the horrifying side of the imagination), and also forgetting that we never lost them in the first place. This book can be a bit cerebral at times, but in a really eloquent way that speaks to the characters, particularly the father, Patrick. This book is an excellent model of strain...more

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May 12, 2012 Dana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Why are so many contemporary novelists superb prose stylists and nasty people? Or at least, people who celebrate nasty characters? This is no t a purely British phenomenon, as Jonathan Frantzen and Jeffrey Eugenides are charter members of the Poetic Misanthrope Society, but few can write as bleakly and humorously as Martin Amis -- or St. Aubyn. Though I was tempted to read individual sentences aloud for their sheer balance and astuteness, the anomie is almost palpable. If you think your therapis...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Lynn rated it 3 of 5 stars

I loved the beginning, which had the marvelous voice of a young boy. He's hyperarticulate, and in even has well-formed thoughts in utero. He also has a wonderfully clear-sighted view of the world. Then I plowed through the middle, with lots of pain caused by people damaged by awful parents. I almost stopped, but I'm glad I didn't, because I got a much clearer view of all concerned by the end.

Loved the kids particularly, who say just what's on their mind. And I loved the style. St Aubyn has the m...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Lea rated it 2 of 5 stars

OMG.... this book will be the death of me.. even as type its sitting winking at me half read on the table, and there it will remain...
I could not finish this book.

There are some really funny laough out loud lines in the book, but apart from that not much else.

The main man drove me mad. Get over yourself and grow a set, I cannot abide that 'victim' stance and as for the wife... seriously have a look in the mirror and sort things out.

I found, what i read of it that is, to be weak, dresed up with b...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Rula Zein-iddin added it · review of another edition

This is a very unique & explicit exploration of familial relationships which although dark & poisonous at times rings very true & hilariously funny thanks to the authentic voices of its characters. The author is incredibly attuned to feelings & is able to convey the inner workings of each characters mind with such astuteness that you feel they are sharing their deepest darkest secrets with you as their only confidente. It does end a little abruptly but given that it is such an or...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Rula Zein-iddin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a very unique & explicit exploration of familial relationships which although dark & poisonous at times rings very true & hilariously funny thanks to the authentic voices of its characters. The author is incredibly attuned to feelings & is able to convey the inner workings of each characters mind with such astuteness that you feel they are sharing their deepest darkest secrets with you as their only confidente. It does end a little abruptly but given that it is such an or...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Travis Lucas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Captivating reading. St. Aubyn seamlessly masters the art of continuously switching perspectives, as well as weaving between past and present events. The prose is endearing, insightful and thoroughly enjoyable. Family dynamics, in particular inter-generational conflicts, are a crucial and incredibly fleshed out theme in this novel. Each character has an intricate backstory, and their interaction is completely believable and explainable in terms of their relationship with each other and their bui...more

1 like · like · see review

title link	preview: Mother's Milk
avg rating	preview: Mother's Milk Goodreads rating: 3.60 (926 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/466349.Mother_s_Milk?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1175006036l/466349.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/466349.Mother_s_Milk?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn[/url]

Mother's Milk (The Patrick Melrose Novels #4)

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