Melrose

And so it’s happening. The filming for the 2018 Sky Atlantic mini series „Melrose“, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, is well under way. Apparently Cumberbatch had been telling the truth, when he answered the question of which character he really would love to play with „Patrick Melrose?“. His obvious passion for Patrick and the novels right there and then made me curious and I’ve read the whole series of autobiographical novels written by Edward St. Aubyn – Nevermind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last – a while back already.

Edward St. Aubyn on Wikipedia

The books’ timeline spans over decades – Patrick Melrose being only 5 years old at the outset and over 40 at the end, with each novel actually describing the events taking place in usually just one day or even only a couple of hours, focussing on the actual event taking place at the time. And yet we see the family’s history unfold in the various flashbacks telling about events of the past that have so obviously impacted the here and now, leading to what Patrick Melrose is going through – from being abused by his father as a child over becoming a drug addict to finally recovering and seeing his way through the net of lies and intrigues of the past, finally to emerge as a different person, not unscathed, but still alive.

In my opinion, the overarching theme of the books is that of dysfunctional relationships – marriages, families, childhoods – dysfunctional lives in general, shining a spotlight on the British upper class in decline, but being in denial about it, self-loathing – it wasn’t long into the first novel until I spontaneously thought „like father like son“.

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