Some Hope: Book Three of the Patrick Melrose Novels

By Edward St Aubyn

Some Hope, the third installment in Edward St. Aubyn's wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle, is centered on a dinner party, attended by the illustrious and profane elite of British society. Patrick, who is now thirty and trying to recover from his addictions, considers becoming a lawyer, having spent most of his inheritance and in need of a job. Some Hope sees Patrick interacting with the contemptible but always fascinating British aristocracy again, and discovering that there might indeed be some hope for him after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781466870710

Edward St Aubyn

Edward St Aubyn's superbly acclaimed Melrose novels are Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2006) and At Last. He is also the author of the novels A Clue to the Exit, On the Edge, Lost for Words and Dunbar.

Reviews for Some Hope

[tobinelliott · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really shouldn't enjoy these novels. All the characters are vacuous bastards whose thin veneer of polished manners hide a vile nest of hatred, bigotry, and judgement.

And yet I can't look away. The characters fascinate me. The situations are entertaining as hell, and the narrative style is wonderful.

I love these books. And it's nice to see some of the stuff from book one paying off in this third volume.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Patrick has cleaned up his act and is attending a party out in the country. Princess Margaret is attending. He is agonizing over how he is going to be able to get rid of all the hatred he has for his father. Some scenes from the previous two books are glimpsed as from a distance and seem to be haunting him but also helping enable some sort of break-through to a new way of looking at things.

[elizabeth_foster-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Scathing (and very funny) analysis of the shallow nature of upper class society, told through many points of view. Every character is caught up in their own bubble of existence and Patrick is beginning to gain some awareness of what constitutes his own. In these later passages, we are afforded a glimpse into his nascent compassion, and his growing ambivalence to his own irony. Brilliant book.

[stillatim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For the first 19 pages, I was disgusted: would this turn out to be the usual, over-descriptive, self-pitying mush? For God's sake, why do you need to say 'black and white magpie'? What the heck other colour magpies are there? Rage ensued.
The next day, I read through the rest of 'Never Mind,' the first novel, straight. It whupped me. Great stuff- fantastic characters, intelligent themes, beautiful writing, funny and emotionally stunning.
So I got to work on 'Bad News,' which was slightly above-par drug-lit. Better written than most of the "and then I tipped a few grains of smack into the spoon which was already black from over-use and applied the flame and watched as it bubbled and pulled back the syringe and plunged it into my arm but because I'm such a hardcore drug user I can't find my veins so I ruined my hit and..." crap, but honestly? Pretty weak compared to 'Never Mind.'
And 'Some Hope,' the final novel, pretty much split the difference. It's post drugs, thank the gods, so we don't have minute descriptions of works; it's also not as concentrated as 'Never Mind.'

The main thing is, St Aubyn writes very well, and manages to combine what is essentially a story of redemption with the kind of charming cynicism that's usually taken to undermine redemption stories. He's very clever; you could write a dissertation, well, maybe a Master's thesis, on this book alone. It's not flawless, but in a world of tentative, day-in-the-life-of realism and lame brained 'experiment' or quirk, you're better off reading this than most things. Wilde James Amis is a nice equation, especially since this book manages to destroy any urge you might have towards nostalgia or even respect for aristocracy. Princess Margaret gets a particularly violent mocking.

[hazelk_9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is a mark of St Aubyn's writing that I almost felt my blood boil at the monstrous upper-class characters assembled at a party deep in the Englsh countryside (in the 70s or 80s?). Could I detach myself enough, I wondered, in order to appreciate what the novelist was doing? And then, in Chapter 9:'They're the last Marxists", said Johnny unexpectedly. 'The last people who believe that class is a total explanation. Long after that doctrine has been abandoned in Moscow and Peking it will continue to flourish under the marquees of England. Although most of them have the courage of a half-eaten worm,' he continued, warming to his theme, 'and the intellectual vigour of dead sheep, they are the true heirs to Marx and Lenin.''You'd better go and tell them,' said Patrick. I think most of them were expecting to inherit a bit of Gloucestershire instead'. At this juncture I started to settle into the book and enjoy the writing. Earlier on I'd been so detached that I'd taken to writing out lists for a 'who's who' in this book as I was confused.To repair himself it is Patrick Melrose who has to 'detach' himself both from the hatred of his father and the stunted love of him: will Patrick be able to release himself into a new life? By the end of the novel there are signs that he's starting to do that and I found that quite touching.St Aubyn is a good stylish writer and I'm now looking forward to his 'Mother's Milk'.

[kidzdoc_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The novels in Edward St. Aubyn's five part Patrick Melrose series are heavily based on St. Aubyn's life, growing up in a highly dysfunctional British upper middle class family with a cruel abusive father and an unprotective substance abusing mother. As he said in a recent article in The Guardian, "The whole Melrose series is an attempt to tell the truth, and is based on the idea that there is some salutary or liberating power in telling the truth. So it would have been quite tiresome to lie about it after having done it. But I can still say what I think is true – that I have spent 22 years trying to transform painful lived experience into what I hope is pleasurable reading experience. The intention was to make a work of art rather than a confession."Some Hope includes the first three Patrick Melrose novels, which were initally published as The Patrick Melrose Trilogy in a single volume by Vintage in 1998. This version of the trilogy was released by Picador in 2006. The fourth novel, Mother's Milk, was shortlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize, and At Last, the final book in the series, was published in 2011.St. Aubyn was born in 1960, and he was repeatedly sodomized by his father between the ages of five and eight, as Patrick Melrose was in the first novel of the series, Never Mind. In it, St. Aubyn portrays Patrick's parents, David and Eleanor. David is a jack of several trades but a master of none, as he briefly practiced as a physician and as a pianist, both under the withering opposition of his own father, who all but disinherited him upon his death. David's upper middle class upbringing leads him to look at nearly everyone with extreme disdain, including his "friends" and those who share his values, and his frustration with his failed life is expressed toward them and especially Eleanor, his well to do American wife, and Patrick, his only son. Eleanor is able to escape David by sleeping in a separate room, driving away in her car, which no one else is allowed to command, and her frequent use of drugs and alcohol. Patrick, however, suffers the full brunt of his father's anger, as he tortures and verbally belittles him in order to make him a tough and independent young man. Other characters are introduced in the novel, who will appear in the subsequent two novels, most notably Nicholas Pratt, who is as close to David as anyone and finds him both admirable for his firmly held opinions and loyalty to British tradition, and misanthropic, for his virulent hatred of everyone, including himself. These characters meet for dinner at the Melrose house in a French country town populated by like minded Britons, as Nicholas and his latest girlfriend come there for a brief visit. The conversation is witty and acerbic, with wicked humor interspersed between the sharp barbs fired by these supposed friends.The trauma of his childhood led St. Aubyn to become addicted to heroin between the ages of 16 and 28. In Bad News, the second novel, Patrick Melrose, now aged 22, travels to New York City for a brief visit to claim his father's body, after he died suddenly there. Patrick's crippling and all encompassing addiction to heroin, cocaine and a bevy of other medications is the main theme of the novel, and this reader was amazed by the massive amount of drugs that Patrick consumed, the use of one drug to counteract the effects of another, and the utter depravity that he had fallen into. The account comes across as authentic, and it was obvious to me that St. Aubyn had lived through or witnessed events such as these as a young adult. Included in this novel are tedious dialogues with several Britons who mourn David's death, while they engage in maudlin admiration for him, their dying breed, and their own trivial accomplishments and acquisitions.In the final novel, Some Hope, Patrick is now 30 years old and he has recently stopped using drugs, replacing them with frequent meaningless sexual encounters and alcohol, while he wallows in self pity and ennui. He is financially independent and abhors the thought of work. He receives an invitation from Nicholas Pratt to attend a lavish party in honor of Princess Margaret in the English countryside, which is meant to ensure his connection with the right people. Characters from both previous novels appear in this one, and the dinner is highlighted by a delightfully amusing encounter between Princess Margaret and the French ambassador.The strength of these three novels is St. Aubyn's gifted writing and dialogue, as he repeatedly skewers the British upper middle class, portraying them as vacuous, utterly useless and despicable excuses for human beings. His description of a drug fueled weekend in Bad News is powerful and disturbing, and that novel should be required reading for all teenagers or any adult who is thinking of using illegal drugs. Many of the characters are so unlikable that I could barely stand to spend any time with them, which is the main reason I only gave the trilogy four stars overall. However, this trilogy was an excellent read, which I would highly recommend.

[wandering_star_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some Hope was originally published as three novellas, each one a snapshot of a period in the life of Patrick Melrose. In the first, Never Mind, Patrick is a young boy and the focus of the story is on his monstrous father; in the second, Bad News, that father has just died and Patrick is in his early twenties; and in the third, also called Some Hope, Patrick is coming up to thirty and is also, perhaps, coming to terms with the difficulties of his early childhood.The story is a bit of a triptych, with books one and three both structured around a social occasion and sharing similar themes (gossip, bitchiness, social power dynamics), while book two focuses much more on Patrick himself and what's going on inside his head.In the first few pages of the first book, as we are being introduced to the unhappy marriage of Patrick's parents, the following lines appear:When she had met David, she thought that he was the first person who really understood her. Now he was the last person she would go to for understanding. it was hard to explain this change and she tried to resist the temptation of thinking that he had been waiting all along for her money to subsidize his fantasies of how he deserved to live. Perhaps, on the contrary, it was her money that had cheapened him. He had stopped his medical practice soon after their marriage. At the beginning, there had been talk of using some of her money to start a home for alcoholics. In a sense they had succeeded.That last sentence is a perfect example of the way that this book makes you gasp - at once with horror and with admiration for the subtlety of the writing. On the following page - after Patrick's mother shakes off her hangover jitters with a handful of uppers and downers ("the yellow pills for keeping her alert and the white ones for taking away the dread and panic that alertness brought with it"), we see her "recognizing herself in the mirror for the first time that day". At this point I knew that it would be a gruelling but breathtaking read, and that's what it turned out to be.There were times when I felt the book was suffering from diminishing returns. In particular, much of it is a vicious skewering of the British upper classes, and at moments I felt I just couldn't be bothered to be plunged back into the obnoxious idiocy of this snobbish world. But then the quality of the writing would make me smile - we are introduced to one character like this:Kitty Harrow, at home in the country, lay in bed propped up by a multitude of pillows, her King Charles spaniels hidden in the troughs of her undulating bedspread, and a ravaged breakfast tray abandoned beside her like an exhausted lover.Within this context, we have the story of Patrick himself - sometimes awful, sometimes funny, sometimes infuriating, sometimes even moving. I don't want to talk too much about what happens to avoid spoilers. But I found myself stretched in all sorts of different ways while reading this. Very good.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This trilogy of novellas presents the Melrose family in which David Melrose and his son Patrick play leading roles. It is the story of a man’s abusive father and the effects of a decadent upper class. Patrick Melrose, as a boy in “Never Mind” experiences the attention of his sadistic father David, who makes his wife eat like a dog just to verify his power, and holds his son up by the ears to teach him to make important decisions for himself. In fact, one of David's personal mottoes is " to break even the smallest rules." David certainly is unconcerned with society's rules when meting out his ritual humiliations. Patrick is on the receiving end of much of this behavior as he thinks to himself, “He did not know who this man was, it could not be his father who was crushing him like this.” The second volume, “Bad News”, finds an older Patrick with residual personal issues, not the least of which is a drug addiction, spending at least $5K/week on heroine or cocaine: “How could he ever hope to give up drugs? They filled him with such intense emotion.” Also, father David has just died. We follow Patrick as he visits the funeral home abroad to gloat over the body, then allows himself to indulge in the best smack in the world, fending off the voices that are the evidence of his trauma: “Every thought or hint of a thought took on a personality stronger than his own.” Patrick heads back to England, after bemoaning his own lot in life with bon mots like: " God, imagine having and opposite number instead of always being one's own opposite number". He seems to have missed out on experiencing either satisfying spite or legitimate grief. Finally, in “Some Hope,” set eight years later, Patrick has dropped the drugs but is still haunted by the memory of his father. His life is not improving enough to convince you, dear reader, that he has any more than some hope -- and little at that. St. Aubyn has a wonderful style filled with intelligent metaphors and a lucid understanding of British upper-class life. The Trilogy reminded me a bit of Evelyn Waugh without the brightness or sparkle.

[scohva · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bleakly comic but ultimately moving set of novels that cover three periods in the life of wealthy Englishman Patrick Melrose. The first, Never Mind, takes place over two days or so at the Melrose house in Provence when Patrick is five. Set around a dinner party, Patrick and his mother endure abuse at the hands of David Melrose (Patrick's father and Eleanor's husband) and the guests deal with his extreme snobbery. Told from multiple points of view, the most serious, but not without its comic moments. The next novel, Bad News, shows Patrick in his early twenties as a drug addict as he travels to New York to collect his father's ashes. Told solely from Patrick's point of view, it had some particularly funny moments as Patrick tries to purchase drugs in various NYC locations.The third, my favorite, Some Hope, has Patrick (in his late twenties and miserably clean) and others as they get ready for and attend a country house party. Characters seen or heard of in the first two volumes make appearances. This part especially skewers the British upper class, but also has the most touching moments. A scene near the end nicely mirrors a scene at the beginning of Never Mind, but with a better outcome, and shows that while things may never be perfect, some mistakes don't have to be repeated and that people can be redeemable. I loved Mother's Milk in August and liked these very much too. Four and a half stars.

[echaika_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Magnificentally written but qute unsettling British novel. It is a testament to its writing that I could bear the long drug feast in the second book. The satire and brittle conversations in the third part were the absolute best I've ever read in any British -- or for that matter American -- novel. The language is quintessentially British upper class: ironic, understated, punny, witty, sophisticated, educated... (I've reviewed this at more length on goodreads.com)

[wiremonkey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although I was horrified at first, I came to really appreciate the sheer virtuosity of his writing. Paradoxically, I found the first part the most horrifiying as well as the most fascinating. I have a real love for British literature and grew up on a diet of disaffected, upper class, way-too-witty-for-their-own-good authors. The malaise that began in the late nineteenth century (or who knows, maybe it has always been there among the leisure class-it is hard to find meaning when you do not do anything meaningful I suspect) and culminated with the pointlessness and tragedy of World War I, and consequently the decadence of the 1920s, that desperate, danse macabre of the jazz years seems to come to its logical conclusion with the character of David Melrose. Now how was that for a run-on sentence? The idea of effort being vulgar is so ridiculous and typical of that class it’s genius! How he justifies the rape of his child is also so satyrical, and delusionary –St-Aubyn constructed a truly fascinating character. As for the other two novels, Bad News and Some Hope, I didn’t find them as thought provoking. Although the writing becomes absolutely lyrical in Bad News- « Do you ask a lobster to disrobe? » I find stories about drug addicts just plain boring. I can only take so much of people’s self-destruction. And the concepts of forgiveness and « moving on » in Some Hope seemed stuck on to the story like a fig leaf over Apollo’s man parts.Still, on the whole, I enjoyed it. I couldn’t help wishing Patrick would just get his head out of his ass for a moment but hey, you can’t have everything in life can you? Besides that particular journey (that is from your ass to lucidity) is probably too much to ask of any of us…