Mother's Milk cover art

Mother's Milk

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Mother's Milk

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

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mother's Milk is the fourth of Edward St Aubyn'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.

The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. 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.

Biographical Fiction Dark Humour Family Life Fatherhood Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Parenting & Families Relationships Biography

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Critic reviews

So good – so fantastically well written, profound and humane . . . it is heartstopping. (Rachel Cooke)
All stars
Most relevant
Profoundly psychoanalytic, but that is woven into entirely plausible, dreadful characters, convey a historical moment and class too. The whole Melrose series excellent, this one crowns them for virtuosity of writing and narrative arc. Fantastically well read here.

Brilliant

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