Double Blind

Edward St Aubyn Harvill Secker, £18.99

Few novels have received as much lavish praise in recent years as Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose series.

St Aubyn drew heavily on his own history – he was sexually abused by his father as a child and later became a heroin addict – in the creation of Melrose, memorably portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2018 TV mini-series.

Now, here is St Aubyn’s first major novel since the Melrose sequence. And he is looking outward rather than inward, as his characters engage in endless intellectual discussions and reflections on big topics – gene theory, ecology, neuroscience, psychoanalysis and God.

Instead of one central character to identify with, as in the Melrose novels, there are several: an expert on rewilding; a biologist trying to prove humans are more than the sum of their genes; a drug-taking businessman who thinks virtual reality is the future of therapy; and a man suffering from schizophrenia.

The argument at the heart of the novel is between those characters who think science can explain everything about human beings, and those who think we are fundamentally mysterious. The former are not only arrogant but nasty, the latter, thoughtful and likeable.

The novel follows its characters through a series of events – some comical, some tragic – over the course of a year. But the characters seem to be of secondary importance to the ideas they discuss, often in clunky dialogue.

Thought provoking as it is, I missed the depth of characterisation found in the Melrose books.