The Nature of Things

Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn My rating: 4 of 5 stars The saving grace of this book is that it's short. If I had been forced to read ten more pages, I think I might have slit my wrists. Not that it is a terrible book. Actually, it is quite a good, well-written book. Edward St. Aubyn is a skillful writer adept at telling the story that he wants to tell. But the story that he tells is so unrelentingly depressing that it is a very fortunate thing that there are only 132 pages of it. The characters in the book are for the most part simply awful people and the most awful of the lot is the pater familias David Melrose. David is sadistic and utterly without morals, cruel to both humans and animals. He delights in torturing ants with his lighted cigar, but not as much as he enjoys torturing and humiliating his wife, Eleanor. Eleanor has retreated and descended into addiction as an escape from the cruelties she endures. She drinks incessantly, striving for a constant state of drunkenness...