Mother's Milk

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2006

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WINNER OF THE 2006 SOUTH BANK LITERATURE AWARD The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. Caught in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife consumed by motherhood, his mother consumed by a New Age foundation, and his five-year-old son Robert understanding far more than he ought. Showcasing Edward St Aubyn's ability to combine the most excruciating emotional pain with the driest comedy, Mother's Milk is a dazzling exploration of the troubled allegiances between parents and children, husbands and wives. Acerbically witty, disarmingly tender, it goes to the core of a family trapped in the remains of its ever-present past. 'So good - so fantastically well-written, profound and humane ...it is heart-stopping' Observer 'The bravura quality of St Aubyn's performance is irresistible' Sunday Telegraph 'Wonderful caustic wit ...Polished yet profound, it's even better than his previous work, and that's saying something' Guardian 'Mother's Milk has the cerebral excitement and piercing funniness of St Aubyn at his brilliant best' Tatler