Patrick Melrose and the misery of wealth

Examining the glamour and poison of the Benedict Cumberbatch-led Showtime miniseries

Benedict Cumberbatch.
(Image credit: Showtime)

How can the rich be unhappy?

It often seems to beggar belief. Material woes — the need to pay the rent and to feed oneself and one's children — seem so vast and crushing that it is hard for many people to imagine despair beyond them, up in the lofty heights. And yet in the well-appointed eyries of the rich a separate species of human misery can flower, one cut off from the masses, but no less absolute.

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Talia Lavin

Talia Lavin is on the editorial staff at The New Yorker. She is the author of the weekly Harpy column at the Village Voice, and hte bi-monthly Apikoress column at the Jewish Daily Forward. She loves dogs, cats, and men, but owns none of the above.