Patrick Melrose, Volume 1: Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope cover art

Patrick Melrose, Volume 1: Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope

Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope

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Patrick Melrose, Volume 1: Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope

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

Read by actor Alex Jennings, Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick.

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.

But the drugs don’t make him forget his past, and the glittering parties offer him no redemption . . .

Searingly funny and deeply humane, Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in the Patrick Melrose series, Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope. Patrick Melrose Volume 2 is also available, containing the final two novels in the series, Mother’s Milk and At Last.

 Coming of Age Dark Humour Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Biography Funny Heartfelt Witty

Continue the series
At Last cover art
At Last By: Edward St. Aubyn

Critic reviews

The Melrose sequence is now clearly one of the major achievements of contemporary British fiction. Stingingly well-written and exhilaratingly funny (David Sexton)
Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation (Alan Hollinghurst)
St Aubyn puts an entire family under a microscope, laying bare all its painful, unavoidable complexities. At once epic and intimate, appalling and comic, the novels are masterpieces, each and every one (Maggie O’Farrell)
St Aubyn’s prose has an easy charm that masks a ferocious, searching intellect. One of the finest writers of his generation
Nothing about the plots can prepare you for the rich, acerbic comedy of St Aubyn’s world – or more surprising – its philosophical density (Zadie Smith)
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)
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)
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)
I’ve loved Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. Read them all, now (David Nicholls)
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)
Clearly one of the major achievements of contemporary British fiction. Stingingly well-written and exhilaratingly funny (David Sexton)
Beautifully written, excruciatingly funny and also very tragic (Mariella Frostrup)
The act of investigative self-repair has all along been the underlying project of these extraordinary novels. It is the source of their urgent emotional intensity, and the determining principle of their construction. For all their brilliant social satire, they are closer to the tight, ritualistic poetic drama of another era than the expansive comic fiction of our own . . . A terrifying, spectacularly entertaining saga (James Lasdun)
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
All stars
Most relevant
Distressing read, and populated entirely by awful people. The second and third books that I listened to improved, with dry humour. I shan't read the remaining books in the series.

Distressing Read

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Some parts of the story were sad to read as the protagonist delved deeper and deeper into self destruction and addiction.It is undoubtedly a work of high intelligence and a succinct social commentary on the upper class society made without compromise or dilution.

Excellent character study and attention to detail.

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I bought it while watching the TV show of the same name. I'm glad I did as it had more substance.

Compelling Story,.

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Disturbing, sad, enthralling and funny all at once. Excellent writing and a wonderful performance by Alex Jennings. The people who appear in this story are so deliciously appalling that a sort of addiction to listening sets in, which is somewhat ironic. I'm going straight on to the next volume.

Excellent

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Amazingly well written and did not expect this book would grip me so much. The way the author describes addiction and reasons why Patrick uses substances is on point. The narration is fantastic and adds a lot of humour to quite a dark story at times. Can’t wait to listen to the next book.

Fabulous!!! *****

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