Breaking with Convention: St Aubyn's Bad News

Few if any have written more powerfully and convincingly about an addicts need for a nearly insane attempts to get a fix than Edward St Aubyn in his novel Bad News, a hellish journey through some of through a NY night as the protagonist, Patrick Melrose, a wealthy, aimless, dissolute young Englishman pursues various narcotics and spends a lot of cash and endures incredible agonies just for the fix and the rush. All that said, I find the novel - the 2nd in the Patrick Melrose series - a disappointment so far in that the entire psychology and mental scope of Patrick involves his pursuit of a high - or of oblivion, or death perhaps. Compare with the first volume of the series that set up complex relationships and back stories among the set of characters - with the 5-year-old Patrick as the focal point.I was expecting, and am expecting, to see more about the forces that shape his mind and his life - and we see and understand almost none of that here. (He's in NYC to attend to the details following his hated father's sudden death - but other than few vitriolic expressions of his hatred for his father he might as well be anywhere, at any time.) Surprisingly, the standard tropes of British coming-of-age novels are completed elided in this series: we know nothing about Patrick's teenage years (in "public" school, presumably) not about his college years or choice or lack of choice of career - 12 vital years entirely omitted from the scope of the series of novels - not sure why except perhaps it's St Aubyn's attempt to break w/ convention.