In the grip of his addictions, Patrick Melrose must fly to New York to collect his father's ashes. Over the course of a lost Manhattan weekend, Patrick's remorseless search for satisfaction, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral, including a disastrous date with the girl of his dreams. Alone in his hotel room later that night, he pushes body and mind to the very edge - desperate to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past.
Melrose is an aristocratic and outrageously funny playboy, who struggles to overcome the damage inflicted by an abusive father and a mother who tacitly condoned the behaviour.
Melrose hilariously skewers the upper class as it tracks the protagonist's harrowing odyssey from a deeply traumatic childhood through adult substance abuse, and ultimately, towards recovery.