Parallel Lines by Edward St. Aubyn
Review by Rachel Shaver
6/30/25
“‘When you’re looking at the photo, that’s the radiant present; when you’re looking through the window, same thing. The difference is that the photos make us think of the convergence of parallel lines. The horizon is a vanishing line made by our way of seeing. The sea and the sky don’t ever meet.’”
The opening of Edward St. Aubyn’s Parallel Lines is not a plunge into darkness as it seems. The novel begins in the confines of a suicide observation room, then shifts to the looming knowledge of humanity’s inevitable extinction, but this is not a emotionally painful read. Parallel Lines is a study of the light that cuts through the shadows, the resilience that is born from struggle, and the compassion and humor to be found in even the darkest moments. As one of St. Aubyn’s many endearing characters explains it,“Compassion is just love in the face of suffering, and love does not run out with use—it grows stronger.”
Sebastian, our first introduction to the brilliance of St. Aubyn’s prose, is a schizophrenic man whose mind has a way of blurring the lines between the real and imaginary. Sebastian is in the throes of psychosis at the start of this story. He has lost his job, his sense of normalcy, and most painfully, he has lost the girl he grew to love to a man he thought was his friend. In his deepest moments of distress, Sebastian also finds his biological mother who reveals he is actually a twin, separated at birth from a sister he never knew he had. Sebastian must reconcile what he knows with what could have been, had he been raised by the wonderful family that raised his sister, rather than the unfortunate upbringing he suffered. On new medication after his recent regression, Sebastian’s mental state is fragile already, and this new information threatens to pull him back into the darkness he has just barely breached the surface of. But under the care of Dr. Carr, his devoted psychoanalyst, Sebastian is able to slowly reign in the relentless nature of his fast-moving thoughts, even as the world seems to unravel around him.
“[Tomorrow] was anticipation’s midnight child, hope’s shuddering little death, a theory somewhere between twenty-four hours and a second away from being falsified. In the twinkling of an eye tomorrow became today and today got a new tomorrow. It was enough to make your head spin, but it could never spin fast enough to have a face-to-face meeting with tomorrow. You couldn’t even do FaceTime instead, like [Sebastian] used to with Gabriella, before she blocked him as a caller.”
In a way, Sebastian is the catalyst of the fateful moments that St. Aubyn weaves together so flawlessly. Sebastian is, without a doubt, one of the strongest aspects of this novel. He is witty, poetic, and heartbreakingly self-aware in a world he navigates alongside people who do not, and may never, understand him.
That isn’t to say the other characters lack dimension. Parallel Lines is a chock-full of unique perspectives and inner worlds, united by their unexplainable convergences over the course of a year. We meet the cynical but sincere Olivia, working on her six-part program depicting all the possible extinctions humanity will face. She grapples with the knowledge that she has contributed to one of these possibilities—overpopulation—by bringing her five-year-old son, Noah, into the world. We also meet her caring, intellectual father, Martin, struggling to navigate his ethical obligations with his devotion to the requirements of his career. Hunter, a man who faces what he has named “compassion burnout” following his wife’s continued battle with terminal cancer, seeks meaning in life after having come into tremendous wealth that he can only imagine sharing with as many people as possible. All of these voices are distinct and lovely in their own ways, and none of them overshadow another. Instead, they weave together in unexpected ways, brushing shoulders with one another while immersed in their own problems that come together in a beautiful reminder of humanity’s interconnectedness.
Through this kind of fragmented omniscience, St. Aubyn creates a novel that is part climate fiction, part coming-of-age, and wholly an intellectual story of the beauty found in the unyielding human spirit. Parallel Lines holds a deep belief in resilience, in living meaningfully despite pain. Many of its characters are suffering, but none are entirely consumed by it. Instead, we watch them all think their way through loneliness, loss, and love, and eventually come together with Sebastian at the heart of it all.
What makes Parallel Lines especially powerful, though, is how St. Aubyn writes with perfect clarity and precision, crafting prose that is lyrical and incisive. Each chapter unfolds like thoughts in motion. The stream-of-consciousness style is complex but never confusing. He trusts his readers to follow the steady flow of a character’s mind, whether it is steeped in layers of metaphor or reflecting on a simple truth of the world. He gives his characters the language to articulate what would otherwise go unspoken. His command of rhythm and tone allows for quick pivots between wit and vulnerability, between the intellectual and the emotional, without ever feeling disjointed.
The novel’s structure mirrors its thematic concerns: the idea of parallelism, the longing for convergence, the fate of connection. These characters move through their lives in ways that feel both random and inevitable as they run alongside each other. By another author, this book could have felt scattered or overly abstract. But St. Aubyn’s precise prose keeps the novel grounded in scene and memory, even through the idiosyncrasies, big and small, that make each character unique. As the title would suggest, the paths of each character in Parallel Lines do not ever intersect, as this would suggest they carry on in opposite directions. Instead, through St. Aubyn’s brilliant writing, it becomes clear their lives have been overlapping the whole time.
Rating: ★★★★★
A constellation of endearing minds and fateful-yet-comedically-timed moments, fit for a place among the classics. For those who need a pick-me-up in the chaos of the everyday world, this is the book for you.
About the reviewer:
Rachel Shaver graduated from Eckerd College with a BA in creative writing and a minor in literature. She lives in Tampa, Florida with her twin sister and spends her days consuming media in all forms. She has been published in Collision Literary Magazine and worked as editor-in-chief for Eckerd Review, as well as editorial intern for Cleaver Magazine.
About the author:
Edward St Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He was educated at Westminster school and Keble college, Oxford University. He is the author of nine novels of which ‘Mother’s Milk’ was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, won the 2007 Prix Femina Etranger and won the 2007 South Bank Show award for literature. His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992) won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994) became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’. His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and A Clue to the Exit (2000).
