Parallel Lines

From the bestselling and award-winning author of the Patrick Melrose novels comes Parallel Lines, a hilarious and moving story of wildly different characters whose lives are improbably—and inextricably—entwined. With St. Aubyn’s trademark wit and sharp insight, the novel explores extinction and survival, inheritance and loss, and the tangled consequences of our choices.

It is summer, and Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him questioning reality and grappling with the desire to connect with the mother who abandoned him. His therapist, Martin, faces his own struggles as his adopted daughter navigates a fraught relationship with her biological mother. Olivia, meanwhile, produces a radio series on catastrophic natural disasters—paralleling the upheavals in her own life, from her best friend Lucy’s grave diagnosis to her husband Francis’s obsession with rewilding the world.

Over the course of a year, their paths collide in both outrageous and poignant ways. Parallel Lines is a brilliant meditation on connection, love, determinism, and the life of the spirit, capturing the mind’s turbulence with humor, empathy, and insight.