At last - Edward St Aubyn

For Patrick Melrose, 'family' is more than a double-edged sword. As friends, relations and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor - an heiress who forsook the grandeur of her upbringing for 'good works', freely bestowed upon everyone but her own child - Patrick finds that his transition to orphanhood isn't necessarily the liberation he had so long imagined.

Yet as the service ends and the family gather for a final party, as conversations are overheard, danced around and concertedly avoided, amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current. And at the end of the day, alone in his rooftop bedsit, it seems to promise some form of safety, at last.

One of the most powerful reflections on pain and acceptance, and the treacheries of family, ever written, At Last is the brilliant culmination of the Melrose books. It is a masterpiece of glittering dark comedy and profound emotional truth.