Parallel Lines

A Novel

By: Edward St. Aubyn

Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch

From the bestselling and award-winning author of the Patrick Melrose novels, a hilarious and moving story about a group of wildly different characters whose fates are improbably yet inextricably linked—a novel about extinction and survival, inheritance and loss, written with St. Aubyn’s trademark wit and inimitable style

It’s the summer, and Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him grappling with his fragile grip on reality and his persistent hunger to connect with the biological mother who abandoned him as a child. His therapist, Martin, is facing challenges of his own, including his adopted daughter’s tenuous relationship with her own biological mother—a predicament that makes Sebastian’s struggle feel uncannily proximate to her own. Olivia is producing a radio series on catastrophic natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life, as her best friend, Lucy, faces a grave diagnosis, and her husband, Francis, pursues his mission of re-wilding the world. Over the course of the next year their fates collide in outrageous and poignant ways, as each of their destinies is revealed in a marvelous new light.

With characteristic brilliance and humor, Parallel Lines investigates themes of dualism, determinism, connection, and love. St. Aubyn captures the life of the spirit as vibrantly as the life of the mind, in a novel that wrestles with moral and psychic anguish and the cascading consequences of our choices at every stage of life. A thrilling, wholly captivating novel from one of the most gifted writers at work today.

Critic reviews

“Mr. St. Aubyn’s ravenous curiosity about the quandaries of existence makes his intellectual investigations feel vital and exciting.” —The Wall Street Journal

“St. Aubyn is worth reading, nearly all the time, because his novels contain brutal and funny intellectual content. He’s a briny writer, one who dispatches a stream of salty commentary, sentences that whoosh past like arrows. . . . St. Aubyn’s talents are mighty.” —The New York Times

“Intellectually roving. . . . Real humans—wounded, flawed and often beautiful—stand behind, and sometimes place themselves in the way of, the ideas the novel confronts.” —The Washington Post

“An elegantly arch but empathetic excursion into impending apocalypse, and some of St. Aubyn’s best work yet.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“From suicide observation room to cutting-edge art installation, Parallel Lines plots quite the journey. . . . In a lesser writer the temptations of sentimentality would get the upper hand, but St. Aubyn is clear-sighted and humane on the basic requirement of life.” —The Guardian

“Brimming with wordplay. . . . The novel bristles with ideas. . . . St. Aubyn is at his best in comic set pieces, which recall the brilliance of the Patrick Melrose quintet.” —Financial Times

“A novel rich in characters and perspectives. . . . [Parallel Lines] doesn't disappoint." —Evening Standard

“Mordan humour abounds.” ­—The Telegraph

Ugh

Can’t get past Chapter 6. While I disdain Trump, he’s just NOT what I want to read about in a novel — I get enough of that sh** every day in the news! Give me a break! So very disappointed after having adored the author’s previous works.