A Dance to the Music of Time: Edward St Aubyn's final Patrick Melrose novel, At Last

Edward St Aubyn: My writing hero

Edward St Aubyn has been one of my favourite contemporary writers for years: there are very few people who can construct sentences as well as he can. He has a classically pure prose style at which I marvel (and envy). Five or so years ago, I reviewed his last novel, Mother's Milk, for The Tablet (unavailable online); it was one of those novels that ought to have won the Booker, and it was a great shame that it didn't. I've reviewed At Last for the Telegraph HERE. It's the final chapter - although, as St Aubyn said in an interview with David Sexton, he hopes he hasn't unemployed himself in so doing - in the Patrick Melrose sequence. One could compare it to Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, with recurring characters and sharp social commentary. They're beautifully constructed, savage and witty.