Parallel Lines
Published on 7. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-5299-5388-6 (ISBN)
Description
A brother and sister lost and found, in a novel that seizes your heart and enthrals your mind, from the author of the Patrick Melrose series.
'Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation' Alan Hollinghurst
'We set off in opposite directions and walked around the world until we met, and I'm very pleased we have...'
Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him with a fragile hold on reality and a hunger to connect with the mother who abandoned him. His therapist, Martin, also faces challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia's tenuous relationship with her biological mother. Olivia, meanwhile, is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life.
Over a year, their fates collide and each of their destinies is revealed in a marvellous new light.
'A tale of art and family...brimming with wordplay' Financial Times
'Sentences that whoosh past like arrows... St Aubyn's talents are mighty' New York Times
'I love Edward St Aubyn' Donna Tartt
'Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation' Alan Hollinghurst
'We set off in opposite directions and walked around the world until we met, and I'm very pleased we have...'
Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him with a fragile hold on reality and a hunger to connect with the mother who abandoned him. His therapist, Martin, also faces challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia's tenuous relationship with her biological mother. Olivia, meanwhile, is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life.
Over a year, their fates collide and each of their destinies is revealed in a marvellous new light.
'A tale of art and family...brimming with wordplay' Financial Times
'Sentences that whoosh past like arrows... St Aubyn's talents are mighty' New York Times
'I love Edward St Aubyn' Donna Tartt
Reviews / Votes
I love Edward St Aubyn -- DONNA TARTT Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation -- ALAN HOLLINGHURST A compassionate book... St Aubyn can express things you always knew but had never had the words for * The Times * St Aubyn's writing is as astute as ever. A coincidence-driven comedy of errors... Glinting with hard-won wisdom lightly worn * Observer * The Patrick Melrose author brings his trademark dark wit and flinty compassion to this wide-ranging sequel... St Aubyn is clear-sighted and humane on the basic requirement of life: 'Compassion is just love in the face of suffering and love does not run out with use - it grows stronger' * Guardian * It is a novel rich in characters and perspectives... The story whips along... All the while, Parallel Lines is building towards a showdown that threatens to break its characters and their values. It doesn't disappoint * Evening Standard * A state-of-the-nation novel that brilliantly uses the conventions of farce, satire and social critique to evoke a nation drifting indifferently into chaos... St Aubyn's portrait of the family and its sharp-edged sketches of various institutions of British life are often very, very funny and always penetrating; but they are also at times moving, especially when they relate to mental health... [Parallel Lines] has formal verve and political vitality -- Orwell Prize for Political Fiction Judges, 2025 St Aubyn remains a terrific writer... [Parallel Lines] is genuinely affecting * i * A tale of analysis, art and family dysfunction... In a novel brimming with wordplay, Sebastian's eagerness to make meaningful connections is affecting * Financial Times * Parallel Lines is entertaining, tidily put together and...sparklingly well written * Literary Review *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
194 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-5388-6 (9781529953886)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2025
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Edward St Aubyn was born in London. His internationally acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels are Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk (winner of the Prix Femina etranger and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and At Last. The series was made into a BAFTA award-winning Sky Atlantic TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. St Aubyn is also the author of A Clue to the Exit, On the Edge (shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize), Lost for Words (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Dunbar and Double Blind.