The Music Room

(Paperback)

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Description

William Fiennes childhood was one of imagination and curiosity, bounded only by the horizon he saw from the roof-tiles of his ancient family home. His older brother Richard, known for his towering presence, his inventiveness, his great passion for Leeds United, and his suffering due to severe epilepsy, was an adored and charismatic figure in his life. Years later, eager to understand his brother's mind as fully as the ancient trees and secret haunts of his own journey towards adulthood, William Fiennes has written a profoundly moving account of his home, his family's care, and above all, of Richard. The Music Room is a luminous testament to the miracle of consciousness and to the permanence of love.

Reviews

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
It is a beautiful and fortifying book, even a great one. -- Nicholas Shakespeare
This is no misery memoir...on the contrary, it is a thoughtful and lyrical account of an extraordinary childhood. -- John Burnside

Author Bio

William Fiennes is the author of the widely-acclaimed The Snow Geese which was shortlisted for the 2002 Samuel Johnson Prize. He runs a charity called First Story, and lives and works in London.