For Patrick Melrose, 'family' is more than a double-edged sword. As friends, relations and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor, an heiress who forsook the grandeur of her upbringing for 'good works', freely bestowed upon everyone but her own child, Patrick finds that his transition to orphanhood isn't necessarily the liberation he had so long imagined. Yet as the service ends and the family gather for a final party, as conversations...