Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn

Today I finished reading Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn.

Fiction, 278 pages, published 2006. I chose the book because it had been heavily “puffed” in the review pages of the serious newspapers, especially those Best Books of the Year sections that are brought out in December. The book even carried an endorsement by Will Self on its front cover.

The book is an examination of the downfall of a family over a short number of years. They miss out on an inheritance, the marriage breaks up (sort of), the husband becomes an near-alcoholic, they have to endure cheap American hotels, they have to endure a relative who speaks his mind in his own home, they bungle an assisted suicide. Mildly funny in places.

Normally I would not complain about a less-than-scintillating novel, but this book has been so over-hyped that I feel cheated. Even though I only paid half-price I feel like asking for my money back. This book does not live up to its endorsement by Will Self (or the Daily Mail, or the Sunday Telegraph, or the Guardian etc).

The novel has a number of narrators, one of which is a child aged about five who seems to think and speak like Noel Coward. The father is so rude to people that not surprisingly he is ostracised and marginalized even in his own home. The mother is such a prig that all your sympathies are with her mother, a malevolent character called (improbably) Kettle.

I used to rely on reviews in newspapers to tell me about good books, but they have become completely unreliable.