While the whole concept and packaging were highly engaging, I felt I needed to have read the first book “Double Blind "to fully appreciate the plot. For this reason, I couldn't quite get to grips with some of the characters who appeared somewhat randomly. Having said that I warmed to the character Sebastian and his unconscious outbursts as he suffered another breakdown. There was a sense of humour and realism with his development, Olivia also held my interest as we delve into her mindset having realised that she is Sebastian’s twin sister and now his therapist's adopted daughter. We witness how the two have developed according to their environment.

I enjoyed St Aubyn’s style of writing, and he is evidently extremely talented which is why I will read the first book and revisit this one again.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication.

This is a rather challenging read and one I think I need to revisit, I loved the cover; it’s dramatic, intriguing and caught my attention. The blurb sounded interesting, something if a story for our times. I wasn’t aware that this is a sequel to an earlier book and I think it would be better to read that first. I intend to read Double Blind and reread Parallel Lines.

I found I didn’t know who was who or how they connected, at first. Being dropped into a stream of consciousness narrative early on was a little testing, but pulling it apart, there’s a lot of humour and once I went with the flow it felt entirely right for the situation; the midst of a schizophrenic breakdown. I’ve found it difficult to fully understand what’s going on and why. The relationships aren’t entirely clear, or seem strangely contrived and ultimately, it’s all a means to an end. But the journey is tough and the only thing that kept me reading was the power of the writing. It has elegance and strength. There doesn’t seem to be a spare word and I feel I’ve missed a trick in not getting to grips with it fully. I’ll read the first book and revisit this title, better informed to appraise it with a fuller understanding. In the meantime, because of the complexity and writing, I’m giving it 4*.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

Unreadable. As it is pdf it is impossible to adjust the font size in the Net Galley app so too small to read

It wasn’t until I was mid-way through this novel that I realised it is a sequel, and that might explain why I had felt that some characters had been almost parachuted into the plot. Although I wish that I had read the first book before starting “Parallel Lines”, I was enjoying it enough to continue reading. Much of the novel is almost in a “stream of consciousness” style which worked well for me, successfully helping to explain various characters’ attitudes and behaviours. There are some fairly lengthy considerations of contemporary social issues amongst the otherwise fairly fast-moving plot. I am now keen to read the earlier book, “Double Blind”, and shall be looking out for a third in the series, if and when one is published.

The first chapter almost put me off. But I was glad I persevered as the next few chapters fairly swept me along. It became sharp, clever and very current. Sadly though by just over half-way/two-thirds through I lost interest in the characters and just found the whole thing somehow 'excessive'. It became a bit tedious and overwrought. In fairness however, this was the first Edward St. Aubyn novel I had read and looking at some other reviews, perhaps I should not have started with this one. Special thank you to Vintage Books and NetGalley for a no obligation digital advance review copy.

This is actually a sequel to a 2020 novel "Double Blind." Whilst "Parallel Lines" can be read as a stand alone the narrative and the characters connections might have made a lot more sense to me sooner had I known this. The novel starts with Sebastian, having a schizophrenic break down in an institution with a big stream of his consciousness dumped on the reader, with some dark but witty elements. It's a bit disconcerting for the reader as it must be for poor Sebastian. His "psycho dad" ( psychiatrist) just happens (rather unbelievably) to be the adoptive father of his estranged twin sibling, Olivia - a huge conflict of interest that isn't explored. The story follows how Olivia and Sebastian eventually connect and Olivia's story is much more conventionally recounted. Stick with this book and it will reward you. I found it really interesting and in retrospect really liked how the first few chapters challenged me.

Parallel lines are a bad premise for a novel. Fiction comes into being when characters crash into each other with unexpected results. If people stay neatly travelling on their own parallel lines, you don't have a novel—you have an episode of Norwegian slow TV.

Fortunately, Edward St Aubyn preserves the parallel lines only for the first half of the book, before ignoring the title of his novel and making those lines crisscross and intersect. This is a novel of multiple characters and different threads, but the most interesting collision is between Sebastian and Olivia, twins who were separated at birth and had never met before (except at a party a few years earlier, when they chatted briefly without realising they were siblings).

Olivia was adopted at birth by Martin and Lizzie Carr, who are more or less the ideal parents: as professional psychoanalysts, they are emotionally aware and supportive, as well as being affluent enough to give her a good start in life. She goes on to become a researcher at Oxford and later a BBC radio presenter. Her twin brother, Sebastian, on the other hand, stayed with his birth parents—an abusive father and ineffective mother—before later being adopted by a couple who seemed not to be much better. He experiences severe mental illness and is in a Suicide Observation Room when we first meet him.

As it turns out, Sebastian's psychoanalyst just happens to be Martin Carr, Olivia's father. This is revealed quite early in the book, so I don't consider it a spoiler. In fact, it was the one part of the story that I found difficult to accept. I know people in this profession, and they've told me that having a personal connection to a patient is a serious ethical breach. Martin is presented in the book as a kind, caring and professional man, a good father and a good analyst, so I find it extraordinary that he would allow this breach to go on for years without simply referring Sebastian to a colleague.

But if you can accept that, it does make for a delicious premise. When Olivia and Sebastian finally meet, Martin must feign ignorance as he talks to each of them in turn. How long will it be before they discover that they share not just the same "Bio Mum" but also the same "Psycho Dad"?

The answer comes towards the back end of the book, in an extended chapter in which we see all of the main characters preparing to attend the same gallery opening in central London. St Aubyn does a great job of stretching this part out, making good use of the large supporting cast to keep the tension going for as long as possible, before finally those parallel lines intersect.

Along the way, we get some beautiful writing and fascinating dialogue. The characters' conversations are far more witty and insightful than any I've heard even when people are performing at dinner parties, let alone in the mundane domestic settings where most of the conversations take place. Here's Martin, for example, speaking about the politics of resentment:

"The politician who knows how to stir it up will always win—making people proud of what they used to be ashamed of is such an intoxicating alchemy."

There are loads of nuggets like that throughout the book. I'm not sure if people really talk that way—even Olivia's five-year-old son Noah is a budding intellectual—but it's wonderful to read.

The early sections with Sebastian are a brilliant and utterly convincing insight into the mind of a person who is constantly free associating, his thoughts jumping from topic to topic at lightning speed, connected by obscure but strangely logical lateral thinking. His first spoken words in the novel would be easy to see as unhinged ravings:

"By that fat cow! .... We've upgraded you from a classic Having room to one of our superior Being rooms ... Give it a rest, me old son ... I don't want to be radicalised."

But these outbursts take place several pages apart, and St Aubyn also takes us through Sebastian's intervening thought processes, revealing a mind that is making creative associations which he just can't control. As the book progresses, he begins to get more control over his thoughts and words, but he still has a tendency to spin from one thought to the next in unusual ways, sometimes to his advantage and sometimes not. It's a sensitive portrait of mental illness that makes Sebastian into a very interesting and surprising character.

Large themes are strewn throughout the book, explored both through the characters' erudite conversations and through aspects of the plot. Since there are two psychoanalysts and one patient at the heart of the novel, the functioning of the human mind is central, but there's also the role of religion, the looming threat of climate change and species extinction, the nature and extent of compassion, and more.

Light also plays a major role in the novel. The gallery opening at which all the parallel lines cross is an exhibit of light art—installations that use light in creative ways to challenge the viewers' perceptions. One of the hospital nurses, who later becomes Sebastian's friend and invites him to the opening, is also a light artist, and another minor character, Hunter, is a tech billionaire who wants to install pieces of light art on his expansive property. I haven't quite thought through the symbolism of it, but I suppose it's about the interconnectedness of the characters, the way they're all groping towards a light of understanding that, as in one of the main art pieces, was "there all along", even in what seems like darkness.

So what happens when those parallel lines do intersect? Not as much as I'd hoped. I won't spoil it by giving details because this really is the climax of the novel, but I thought St Aubyn could have made more of the fallout from the gallery opening at which all of the characters meet and Martin's secret comes out. The ending felt satisfying on some levels but incomplete on others, with the central conflict only briefly explored and multiple loose ends left hanging with the minor characters.

After finishing the book and reading up about it online, I realised that this novel is part of a larger series. It's a sequel to Double Blind, which I haven't read, and although I don't think there are more books officially lined up, the ending strongly suggests to me that there will be. The author's previous Patrick Melrose series spanned five novels over the course of a decade, so I suspect this will be a similar multi-part series.

That explains the ending that left me wanting more, as well as the multiple plot lines that were introduced but didn't really go anywhere. Some, I now realise, are continuations of storylines from Double Blind, and others, I imagine, will be more fully developed in the next installment. So although Parallel Lines does have a lot to offer as a standalone novel, I think you'd probably get more from it if you read it as part of the whole series.

This was a really interesting novel and there was definitely a sense of humour here which may not be for everyone but was definitely up my street.

I do wish I had read the previous novel that this one follows but it didn't detract from my enjoyment.

This novel is a prime example of a writer who is gifted with excellent characters, a great storyline and more than a dash of humour with some social commentary thrown in. Martin is a therapist who has some colourful patients including Sebastian. He is a twin and he ended up in care while his twin sister, Olivia, was adopted and, by all appearances, has had a normal life. Olivia is a radio producer and she is working on a radio series detailing natural disasters, everything from overpopulation to climate change. The descriptions of Sebastian’s conversation with Martin as his therapist and his overall train of thought is extremely well written- often, writers do not capture the chaotic thought processes of those with major mental health diagnoses. The story of Olivia and Sebastian develops over one year and the intricacies of their lives is revealed with wit and pragmatism. A natural born story teller- very enjoyable.

Before you read this book, you should know that it’s a sequel to St Aubyn’s 2021 novel ‘Double Blind’. Before reading this review, you should know that I did not know that before reading this book. I made that discovery when I was 70% through this book, and thinking “wow, this is a weird way to structure a book. Who are all of these people? Kind of weird that we get very little backstory about any of them!”

Does anything I have to say about this book hold any value now? Unsure! Hard not to feel like most of my issues with it could have been resolved by reading the preceding novel. As a standalone novel, this feels pretty unfocused, flitting between characters who are barely introduced and plot lines that are hard to follow - and don’t seem to tie in to the main strand of this story much at all! However, I’m sure they probably do tie in to the wider story of the series and so they likely make a lot more sense with that context. This novel literally ends with a character saying “to be continued” and none of the plot strands get any closure, so it’s safe to say there’s more coming.

There are a couple of other reviews on Goodreads suggesting that this can be read as a standalone. I don’t wholly disagree, I clearly could and did read it as a standalone, and I enjoyed my time with it just fine. Chapters focused on Sebastian are particularly engaging, with the stream-of-consciousness and scattered prose mirroring his own mental health issues in a really inventive way. The main plot following Sebastian meeting his twin sister and the way the majority of the characters’ stories intersect is really neatly plotted, and enjoyable to uncover. I did have issues with the sheer intellectualism of the novel, though - every single character in this novel, including the 5 year-old, is unbelievably introspective and analytical. There are pages upon pages of philosophical discussions that do not feel like authentic conversations that real people actually have, and these become a bit of a slog to wade through.

Just because you CAN read this as a standalone novel, though, it doesn’t mean you should - you shouldn’t. Read the first one first. I haven’t, but I’m pretty confident that this is a better novel when you actually know what’s going on.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for a review.

Whilst I had heard of this author, I had never read any of his books, so was pleased to have the opportunity to read one with an interesting premise. Sadly however I found it really hard to get into even after a second attempt and knowing that Sebastian was in a psychiatric unit. Edward St Aubyn is obviously a clever writer, almost too clever in that I kept thinking I was missing a joke or plot point. Unfortunately I was unable to finish it.
Thank you to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book

Parallel Lines offers a beautifully complex exploration of human connection, emotional fragility, and the often unpredictable paths our lives take. In this intricate narrative, St Aubyn examines the intersecting lives of a therapist, his patient, and those closest to them, all struggling to come to terms with their own personal crises. While some of the narrative threads may initially seem disconnected, they gradually converge in a poignant and thought-provoking way.

Sebastian, the central character, is in treatment after a breakdown that has left him emotionally fractured. His journey is one of searching—searching for meaning, understanding, and connection, particularly with the mother who abandoned him during his childhood. His therapist, Martin, is also dealing with personal turmoil, notably his adopted daughter Olivia’s strained relationship with her biological mother. Olivia, meanwhile, is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which feels oddly parallel to the natural disasters unfolding in her own life, particularly as she grapples with the precarious health of her best friend, Lucy, and the ambitious mission of her husband, Francis, to rewild the world.

The novel is rich with emotional depth, as the characters wrestle with their pasts, their relationships, and their own sense of identity. While the first part of the book introduces a variety of threads—some of which felt more engaging than others—the narrative truly begins to take shape in the latter half. As the lives of Sebastian, Martin, Olivia, and the other characters intertwine, the impact of their actions and decisions becomes more pronounced. The eventual convergence of their stories is both dramatic and subtle, revealing the intricate ways in which our lives are shaped by both chance and choice.

One of the most compelling aspects of Parallel Lines is its ability to explore the complexity of relationships. St Aubyn delves into the nuanced dynamics between parents and children, the longing for connection, and the ways in which people cope with trauma. The emotional stakes are high, and as the story unfolds, the reader becomes increasingly invested in the fates of the characters.

However, the ending left me with a sense of ambiguity. Whether this was due to the proof copy or simply the deliberate choice of the author, it felt somewhat unresolved, which may be frustrating for some readers but intriguing for others. The final chapters are by far the most gripping, but the lack of clear closure makes the reader question the ultimate message of the book.

Overall, Parallel Lines is a deeply reflective and emotionally charged story. While it might require patience through the early stages, the payoff in the final third makes it a rewarding read. If you enjoy literary fiction that examines the intricacies of human relationships and the unpredictable nature of life’s journey, St Aubyn’s latest book is one to consider.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

I have not read this author before but the blurb appealed so I requested an ARC.
Unfortunately I did not connect with this book. I found it very hard going and difficult to follow and to know where I was in the story. I had to keep going back and checking to make sure I hadn't misread something.
Sadly not for me

Edward St Aubyn’s ‘Parallel Lines’ is an incisive, sharply written novel that blends satire, psychological depth, and linguistic playfulness in a way that will either delight or frustrate readers, depending on their taste for St Aubyn’s signature wit. It is an engaging and intelligent exploration of identity, privilege, and the absurdities of the London elite.

At the heart of the novel is a tale of separated twins — Sebastian (Seb), a brilliant but deeply troubled man navigating schizophrenia, and Olivia, who was adopted at birth by none other than Seb’s eventual therapist, Dr. Martin Carr. Their contrasting upbringings set the stage for a novel that oscillates between cutting social commentary and deeply personal reckonings. Surrounding them is a cast of vividly drawn characters, from artists to tycoons, whose lives weave into the central narrative with both humour and poignancy.

Stylistically, ‘Parallel Lines’ is both dazzling and demanding. St Aubyn’s wordplay is razor-sharp, his prose bordering on stream-of-consciousness at times, making it an immersive yet sometimes challenging read. The satire of the privileged London classes is particularly biting, though for some, the sheer density of irony might make it feel more like a literary exercise than an emotionally resonant story. However, the novel’s final act delivers a surprising warmth, tying its strands together in a way that hints at the possibility of a sequel.

This was my first novel by the author, and I was intrigued. It’s also the second in a possible series, but stands well on its own. It is an intelligent and entertaining novel, best suited for readers who enjoy their fiction laced with wit, wordplay, and a touch of existential absurdity.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

This is an author I've not read before, so was pleased to have the opportunity to do so. The writing is exquisite, no doubt about that, but I did find it hard going at times - I think this is an author you need to work at, which is not for everyone, but very enjoyable for others.

Parallel Lines is about estranged twins, Sebastian and Olivia.

The book jumps between the perspectives of different characters. Initially, Sebastian is an inpatient in a hospital. These early parts of the book felt fairly abstract and difficult to follow at points, which was very likely done intentionally by the author to reflect the distress and general wellbeing of Sebastian. Olivia has a young son, and she has lived a relatively privileged life. These parts of the book feel more structured.

As the book progresses, the link between Olivia and Sebastian becomes more clear. I thought the book was okay, but a little difficult to follow at points. I thought the way the author looked at mental health, relationships and family dynamics was interesting.

With thanks to Random House, Vintage Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I was on edge all the way through reading Parallel Lines. In it, there's a character making six programmes about how the world might end, and I convinced myself that someone's world would end in violence by the end of the book. We are told two different stories running side-by-side. Olivia and Sebastian were given up for adoption at birth, Olivia into privilege, Sebastian into hardship. Because Sebastian is schizophrenic and disturbed, I feared that someone would die when the two narratives came together.
As a very wise Monk in the book says: "But a feeling is just a feeling.," said Guido. 'It is like th shadow of a cloud; we don't have to pay so much attention to it.'

This is something quite different. I liked the creative writing style expressing the thoughts of a mentally unstable person.

This is my first Edward St Aubyn novel - I hadn't read double Blind which is an earlier book that introduces several characters

This is a tale of siblings - identical twins separated at birth and the story of their different paths that lead to a reunion. the book starts from the perspective of Sebastian- the brother and schizophrenic- receiving treatment from Dr Martin Carr.
Dr Carr's adoptive daughter Lucy is navigating life with young son and a husband who re-wilding the world!

This is a 'clever' book- clever in the sense of word play but also in relation to satirising the 'chattering' classes of the London elite/wealthy- but sometimes it feels every sentence is a bit of an' in-joke' - that Mr St Aubyn is on a mission to take an ironic view of the world in such a way that nothing is truly real and it becomes a Guardian article.- so much virtue signalling it became exhausting

The mindset of Sebastian is beautifully constructed as he navigates his understanding of modern life but it is the final quarter of this book that redeems the novel with a sense of warmth as stories are linked and new relationships are made. It would seem from the final line that a sequel may one day appear...

Personally this is a 3.5 for the final part but will give 3 overall - I just felt that wasn't truly into the mindset of the author enough although I can imagine many will be.

I have read several books by this author before which I have really enjoyed. However, I struggled with this one. It is very clever, knowingly so, and when we read Sebastian’s stream of consciousness, he is in analysis, it feels like reading the worst social media rants. And there are few paragraphs to break it up, which I get is a stylistic choice but which I find difficult.

There are several threads of different stories some of which, of Olivia in particular, I found more engaging than others. Eventually, these stories begin to overlap and merge and that is when it got more interesting. I enjoyed the last third of the book most but the ending was ambiguous and I was uncertain whether it was because I had a proof copy.

I understand from other reviews there is a prequel and a possible sequel. I would like to know how this ends!

I read an ARC provided by NetGalley and the publishers.