Edward St Aubyn’s much lauded and harrowing Patrick Melrose novels have been turned into a tour-de-force tv drama series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. St Aubyn fictionalised the poisoned legacy of his upbringing in a highly dysfunctional upper-class family. He was raped by his father very young for three years, either with the complicity or wilful ignorance of his mother. By the time he reached Oxford University he was a heroin addict, alcoholic and a user of every drug on the black market barring LSD. Only after he went into psychoanalysis in his mid 20s did he start to clean up and become a successful professional writer.
Although the subject matter is grim, he has a caustic wit about the futility of the very rich and his out-of-control addictions, which it’s a miracle he survived.
Born 14 January 1960 in Cornwall, he’s a Sun Capricorn with Mercury Saturn and Mars spread out through Capricorn as well; and Saturn Mars trine Pluto, sextile Neptune in Scorpio. He’s got ambition and initiative which would help to haul him out of that grim combination of Saturn Mars and Pluto. What probably saved his sanity (or allowed him to recover it) is Jupiter and Venus in Sagittarius trine Uranus, which would give him optimism. His Moon is late Cancer or early Leo, probably opposition his Sun.
His father Roger, son of an alcoholic Brigadier (friend of the Duke of Windsor who drank himself to death in Monte Carlo) was born 9 June 1906 and had his Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and a Mars Pluto conjunction strung out through Gemini; with his Sun, Mercury, Jupiter square Saturn – so cruel, ruthless, with his own demons.
The relationship chart between Edward and his father had a highly stressed Mars trine Pluto and inconjunct Uranus. Which isn’t dissimilar to the relationship chart between Roger (father) and his father Edward Geoffrey St Aubyn, with a composite Mars Venus sextile Pluto Neptune and trine Saturn, and Mars square Uranus. These patterns of violence and abuse tend to roll down the generations until one individual steps out of their role, usually in therapy, and breaks the chain.
When Edward St Aubyn went into analysis in his mid twenties his chart was awash with Uranus – his Solar Arc Sun opposing his natal Uranus; his Solar Arc Uranus square his Venus and then Jupiter which also had tr Uranus conjunct his Venus Jupiter. Uranus is traditionally the torcher-bearer, shining a light into the unknown and bringing light to darkness. It would be a very long haul but he’s held up as an example of someone who managed through mental health care to extricate himself from a damaged childhood.
Benedict Cumberbatch says it was the one role he always wanted to play (apart from Hamlet). His Sun Cancer is possibly conjunct St Aubyn’s Moon; with his Jupiter trine St Aubyn’s Sun so a good connection.
Edward St Aubyn has a strong though strained writers’ 21st Harmonic; several quintiles and septiles from the creative 5H and 7H; an aggravated victim/healer 12H; and a tough-struggle breakthrough 13H.