When millionaires become billionaires they become even greedier and more ruthless. At the highest level, Trumpian economics can be lethal. Edward St Aubyn, in his powerful new novel Dunbar, applies the oxyacetylene brilliance and cauterisation of his prose to bear on the tragic endgame of a family’s internecine struggle for control of a global fortune. St Aubyn is a connoisseur of depravity, yet also shows he cherishes the possibility of redemption.
Henry Dunbar is an 80-year-old Canadian mogul who founded and developed the world’s second-most influential media conglomerate. His older daughters, Abigail and Megan, want the wealth and power; his youngest daughter, Florence, wants only his love. The rivalry is freakishly intense, but one can endure the horrors and enjoy the author’s stylish craftsmanship.
At first the old man’s situation seems terminally dire. The diabolically acquisitive daughters have bribed his personal physician to commit him to a supposedly secure psychiatric hospital in the Lake District.
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