Clearly this was not an easy story to bring to life — St Aubyn's real - life story, where as a boy he was raped from the age of 5 to 8 and the people who were meant to protect him were either doing the damage or contributing to it by looking the other way (though St Aubyn
eventually becomes a professional writer, marries, has children,
kicks his
habit and uses therapy to help as much as possible, so there's some semblance of a happy ending).