THE MUSIC ROOM

by Dennis McFarland ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 26, 1990

McFarland's first novel--about a rich, alcohol-ravaged southern family--has the lived-in feel of an intimate memoir (Michael Arlen's Exiles, for example). In the past, the Lamberts were sustained on their Norfolk, Virginia, estate by music, money, and booze. Grandfather Lambert, a concert pianist, killed his wife and himself when he crashed into a mountain, flying while drunk. His son Rudy's career ended after a single recital, when his wife Helen (a former Vegas chores-girl), upset over losing her drinking partner to the piano, threatened to depart with the children; so Rudy (""an addict who loved his children"") drank himself to death instead. Now it's 1976, Helen is an A.A. member; much of the family fortune has been squandered; and Rudy's son Martin, the 29-year-old owner of a San Francisco record company, is flying to New York to find out why his kid brother Perry has jumped to his death. The narrative moves easily between Martin's memories of a chaotic childhood (the cello and the piano providing the boys' only discipline) and his present, self-imposed quest to understand why Perry--a talented composer, the Mr. Clean of the family, no drink or dope--should have killed himself. In the process, he develops an extraordinary closeness to the memory of Perry, and to Perry's girlfriend Jane; but then his infatuation with Jane turns to hostility and paranoia, and Martin is forced to acknowledge his own serious drinking problem, even as he concludes that there is no single answer to Perry's death. A warm welcome seems assured for this powerful debut, and why not? McFarland has tapped into some enduring American myths, and he writes like an angel. True, Perry's suicide is a tease, the searing, climactic scene in which Martin calls Helen to account somehow never got written, and the blue-skies ending is Hollywood-phony; but such disappointments fade beside the countless small illuminations along the way.

Pub Date: April 26, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION