Music Room: A Memoir - Hardcover

Fiennes, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393072584 ISBN 13: 9780393072587

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 2009

Synopsis

William Fiennes spent his childhood in a moated castle, the perfect environment for a child with a brimming imagination. It is a house alive with history, beauty, and mystery, but the young boy growing up in it is equally in awe of his brother Richard. Eleven years older and a magnetic presence, Richard suffers from severe epilepsy. His illness influences the rhythms of the family and the house s internal life, and his story inspires a journey, interwoven with a loving recollection, toward an understanding of the mind. This is a song of home, of an adored brother and the miracle of consciousness. The chill of dark historical places coexists with the warmth and chatter of the family kitchen; the surrounding landscapes are distinguished by ancient trees, secret haunts, the moat s depths and temptations. Bursting with tender detail, The Music Room is a sensuous tribute to place, memory, and the permanence of love.

About this title

Review:

The Music Room has an elegiac feel, not least because Mr. Fiennes writes about his family with such care and dignity. His descriptions of Richard's outbursts and seizures have the brutality of truth without any of the modern memoirist's tendency to sensationalize. We are brought deep into the castle that was a family's home, yet what we learn still has an air about it of privacy and restraint. --Meghan Cox Gurdon

From the Publisher:

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0393072584
• ISBN 13: 9780393072587
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256