Edward St Aubyn and Me

Edward St Aubyn and Me

I met Edward St Aubyn, author of the Patrick Melrose Trilogy, at a conference on consciousness in Tucson about twenty years ago. He was writing a book centering on the problem of consciousness.  Tall, handsome, witty, refined—I took to him immediately. We became friends. I came to know him as Teddy. I knew nothing of his soon-to-be-famous first book Never Mind. We met later several times, in London and New York. On one occasion he gave me a copy of the trilogy—he actually threw it out of a window to me in the street because I’d forgotten it (rather symbolic). I read it and was astounded by its brilliance—the writing, the humor, the emotional depth. We kept in touch by phone. When the novel he was writing came out (A Clue to the Exit) I was tickled to find that I was in it, called simply “a man named McGinn”; evidently, I had solved the problem of consciousness so far as the author (and lead character) were concerned. Then, sometime later, the trilogy was dramatized with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. It ran on Showtime and I watched it zealously, conveying my reactions to Teddy pari passu. Benedict was terrific and the whole series excellent, though I did have a couple of minor misgivings about some of the acting. More recently, I read his Double Blind in which science comes in for fictionalized treatment, and here again my imprint is felt in a couple of chapters (he sent me a copy of the book along with a thank you note). I think I have read all his books now, always with great enjoyment and admiration. If I had never gone to that conference, none of this would have happened. I thoroughly recommend his books.