The Patrick Melrose books by Edward St Aubyn in order

Book one in the series

At his mother’s family house in the south of France, five-year-old Patrick Melrose has the run of a magical garden. His father, David, rules with considered cruelty, and Eleanor, his mother, has retreated into drink. One summer's day, shocking events will tear Patrick's world in two. 

Book two in the series

Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father’s ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick’s remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. 

Book three in the series

Patrick Melrose, cleaned-up and world-weary, is a reluctant guest at a glittering party deep in the English countryside. Amid a crowd of flitting social dragonflies, he finds his search for redemption and capacity for forgiveness challenged by his observation of the cruelties around him. Can Patrick, who has been to the furthest limits of experience and back again, find release from the savageries of his childhood?

Book four in the series

Caught up in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife Mary consumed by motherhood, his mother in thrall to a New Age foundation, and his young son Robert understanding far more than he should. But even as the family struggles against the pull of its ever-present past, a new generation brings a new tenderness, and the possibility of change.

Book five in the series

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.

Volume One of Patrick Melrose includes books one to three in the quintet: Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope.

Moving from Provence to New York to Gloucestershire, from the savageries of a childhood with a cruel father and an alcoholic mother to an adulthood fraught with addiction, Patrick Melrose is on a mission to escape himself.

Volume Two of Patrick Melrose includes books four to five in the quintet: Mother’s Milk and At Last.

Caught up in the turmoil of broken promises, assisted suicide, adultery and fatherhood, Patrick is still a long way from salvation, but even as the family struggles against the pull of its dark past, a new generation promises new light, new hope and – perhaps – the promise of a brighter future.