Closing the book. This is St. Aubyn's fifth (and last?) novel about his alter ego Patrick
(2 of 2)
She imagined vodka poured over ice and all the cubes that had been frosted turning clear and collapsing in the glass and the ice cracking, like a spine in the hands of a confident osteopath. All the sticky, awkward cubes of ice floating together, tinkling, their frost thrown off to the side of the glass, and the vodka cold and unctuous in her mouth.
That unctuous--you'll never look at a vodka, rocks, the same way again.
St. Aubyn has been published quietly in the U.S. for years, but At Last is, at last, being launched with some fanfare, and the first four Patrick Melrose books have been reissued in a single volume (Picador; 688 pages). Don't miss them this time. It's not trendy right now to write about the rich, but writing this good goes way beyond trendy. St. Aubyn's work reminds us that money can be a disaster not just for those who don't have it but also for those who do.