So good--so fantastically well-written, profound and humane...it is heart-stopping Observer First published in 2006, Mothers Milk is the fourth novel in the critically acclaimed Patrick Melrose series. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize that year and won the 2006 South Bank Literature Award and the 2007 Prix Femina Étranger. The once illustrious, once wealthy Melr So good--so fantastically well-written, profound and humane...it is heart-stopping Observer First published in 2006, Mothers Milk is the fourth novel in the critically acclaimed Patrick Melrose series. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize that year and won the 2006 South Bank Literature Award and the 2007 Prix Femina Étranger. The once illustrious, once wealthy Melrose are in peril. Caught up in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife consumed by motherhood, his mother consumed by a New Age foundation, and his five-year-old son Robert understanding far more than he ought. Acerbically witty, disarmingly tender, Mothers Milk goes to the core of a family trapped in the remains of its ever-present past.