At Last (The Patrick Melrose Novels, 5) - Softcover

'One of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade.' Michael Chabon, LA Times `The wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse and the waspishness of Waugh. A joy' Zadie Smith, Harpers `The darkest possible comedy about the cruelty of the old to the young, vicious and excruciatingly honest. It opened my eyes to a whole realm of experience I have never seen written about. That's the mark of a masterpiece' The Times `Blackly comic, superbly written fiction . . . His style is crisp and light; his similes exhilarating in their accuracy . . . St Aubyn writes with luminous tenderness of Patrick's love for his sons' Caroline Moore, Sunday Telegraph `A masterpiece. Edward St Aubyn is a writer of immense gifts' Patrick McGrath `His prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect. As a sketcher of character, his wit - whether turned against pointless members of the aristocracy or hopeless crack dealers - is ticklingly wicked. As an analyser of broken minds and tired hearts he is as energetic, careful and creative as the perfect shrink. And when it comes to spinning a good yarn, whether over the grand scale or within a single page of anecdote, he has a natural talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat' Melissa Katsoulis, The Times `Beautifully written, excruciatingly funny and also very tragic' Mariella Frostrup, Sky Magazine `Clearly one of the major achievements of contemporary British fiction. Stingingly well-written and exhilaratingly funny' David Sexton, Evening Standard `Wonderful caustic wit . . . 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' Edmund White, Guardian `I've loved Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels. Read them all, now' David Nicholls `From the very first lines I was completely hooked . . . By turns witty, moving and an intense social comedy, I wept at the end but wouldn't dream of giving away the totally unexpected reason' Antonia Fraser, Sunday Telegraph `Humor, pathos, razor-sharp judgement, pain, joy and everything in between. The Melrose novels are a masterwork for the 21st century, by one of our greatest prose stylists' Alice Sebold `Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation' Alan Hollinghurst `The pinnacle of a series that has plunged into darkness and risen towards light. At Last is both resounding end and hopeful beginning' Philip Womack, Telegraph `At Last is a miraculously wrought piece of art' Suzi Feay, Financial Times `The Melrose novels are remarkable - ferociously funny, painfully acute and exhilaratingly written. A brilliantly controlled story of a life sent out of control' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times `Remarkable. St Aubyn's books are at once extremely dark and extremely funny' Francine Prose, New York Times 'At once epic and intimate, appalling and comic, the Melrose novels are masterpieces' Maggie O'Farrell `Urgent emotional intensity, brilliant social satire . . . A terrifying, spectacularly entertaining saga' James Lasdun, Guardian `This triumphant conclusion to St Aubyn's sequence about boyhood traumas and adult tribulations fizzes with his astringent verbal flair and lethal ear for dialogue' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

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.