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Bad News

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Bad News

By: Edward St Aubyn
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
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About this listen

Bad News is the second novel in Edward St Aubuyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. This audiobook edition is read by stage and screen actor Alex Jennings.

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. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge – desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past.

 Biographical Fiction Dark Humour Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Mental Health Psychology Psychology & Mental Health New York Biography
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This book is so depressing that, although it is brilliantly told, I couldn't give it a higher rating than 4 stars. Edward St. Aubyn relates the sordid world of drug taking in such vivid detail that I felt I was there with him as he dealt with dealers, struggled to find veins that were not damaged from previous abuse and lived in permanent anticipation of his next “fix”.
In New York to collect the ashes of his abusive father, the story is about the endless round of sniffing, injecting, swallowing drugs and, although he knew that the seconds of pleasure they gave him were not worth the agony of withdrawal, he could not stop himself. This book should be on every school syllabus because it would surely discourage any would-be addict from ever attempting to try drugs.
Alex Jennings narration is superb and made the miserable account of an addict’s life bearable.

Depressing but brilliantly written and spoken

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