Few novels achieve the enduring cultural footprint of books like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, or George Orwell’s 1984. But sometimes, a novel is so good that it deserves a second chance at immortalization.
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According to Collider, which just shared its list of the best “forgotten 2000s books that are perfect from start to finish,” Edward St. Aubyn’s 2005 novel, Mother’s Milk, is one of those books.
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“Despite at times being truly harrowing, the book is poignant and calming in its own way, and there's something respectable about the way it stares directly into the darkness,” the outlet declared.
Published in October 2005, Mother’s Milk is the fourth installment of the five-part Patrick Melrose series. As a whole, the franchise is a semi-autobiographical look at the dysfunction and shifting allegiances of an upper-class family, with book four focused on Patrick as a father and husband in middle age, hoping he can break the cycle of abuse and emotional damage he inherited.
"Indeed, author Edward St. Aubyn based a lot of it on his life, particularly his traumatic childhood," Collider wrote. "Mother's Milk pivots between drama and black comedy, touching on taboo topics like abuse, resentment, suicide, infidelity, addiction, and family feuds, while also skewering upper-class pretensions.
Belonging to an affluent British lineage of noble descent, St. Aubyn is related to the historical St. Aubyn baronets of Cornwall. According to an interview with NPR, the writer used the pages of his Patrick Melrose series to work through the trauma he suffered as a child, his struggle with heroin addiction, and his eventual recovery.
But he cautions readers against trying to figure out what is real and what is fiction: “It’s not important to pinpoint what is real life and what is not,” the author told The Times. “There are three things—the more troubling aspects of my life, the novel, and now the film.”
In 2006, the novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, so St. Aubyn’s biting wit and sharp satire did not go unnoticed. Over the years, however, the novel never quite found the broad readership its acclaim suggested, even after Gerald Fox adapted it into a feature film and Showtime later introduced the Patrick Melrose saga to a wider audience with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role of the five-part miniseries.
Now, nearly two decades after its publication, perhaps it's time for Mother's Milk to reach the wider audience it deserves and move beyond niche critical circles. After all, some of literature’s sharpest, funniest, and most devastating novels take longer to earn their place among the classics.
Related: Best-Selling Author’s New Novel Ranked No. 1 Most-Read Fiction Book Right Now on Amazon
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