Key themes
- Aristocratic cruelty and the particular forms it takes
- The child as the object of adult malice
- Money, beauty, intelligence — and what they cannot protect against
About this book
Five-year-old Patrick Melrose spends a terrible day at his family's Provençal farmhouse while his brilliant, sadistic father, his numbed mother and their assorted guests inflict and absorb the particular cruelties of the English upper class. The first of the Patrick Melrose novels is the shortest and the most compressed — a day in childhood that contains everything.
Published in 1992, Never Mind is the first of five Patrick Melrose novels. St Aubyn published them over many years while maintaining a life partly defined by the experiences they describe. They were adapted into a television series.
Discussion questions
- David Melrose is one of the most disturbing father figures in contemporary fiction. How does St Aubyn show his intelligence and his sadism simultaneously — and what does this coexistence say?
- The novel is very short and refuses any moralising. What is St Aubyn's method — and what does refusal to comment add to the horror?
- Eleanor Melrose is complicit in what happens to Patrick. How does St Aubyn develop her character — with sympathy, contempt, or something more complicated?
- The Provençal setting — beautiful, expensive, full of sophisticated guests — contrasts with what is actually happening. What does this gap between surface and reality add?
- The Patrick Melrose sequence is autobiographical — St Aubyn was himself the Patrick of this novel. How does knowing this affect how you read it — and how does it affect your assessment of what fiction can and cannot say?
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