The Music Room

by William Fiennes, Picador, 216pp, £14.99, Week Bookshop £13.49 (incl. p&p) "Three stories are told in the small space of this unusual and beautiful book," said Anne Chisholm in the Sunday Telegraph. "The story of a great house, the story of a family tragedy and the story of the exploration of the human brain." William Fiennes’ follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Snow Geese, is a memoir of growing up in the moated castle that his family has lived in since the 14th century (it is never named, but it is easily identified as Broughton Castle in north Oxfordshire). Fiennes describes the house, "with passionate appreciation but without either pride or false modesty", through the eyes a child, for whom it was normal to learn to ride a bike in the Great Hall, to swim in the moat and to talk to the actors rehearsing Shakespeare in the gardens. But if his early life was "part idyll", it was also "part nightmare", overshadowed by the sad history of his brother Richard, 11 years his senior.

"Richard had always had epileptic fits from childhood but one full-blown attack resulted in his frontal lobes being damaged," said Virginia Ironside in the Independent. "As he grew older, he turned into an unpredictable, powerful, sometimes delightful and sometimes frightening presence." He could be thrown into a violent mood by the slightest mishap – such as a bad result for his beloved Leeds United. "His great strength and unpredictable aggression meant that he might yank the car keys from the ignition and throw them in the moat, or cut the telephone wires with kitchen scissors"; on many occasions he attacked or threatened his family. Eventually, Richard had to be placed in care, though his condition improved before his early death, aged 41. The chapters that Fiennes devotes to the history of epilepsy and the study of the brain occasionally seem like "unnecessary padding", but otherwise The Music Room "is an exceptionally honest, beautifully written and observed memoir".

This is "an intensely evocative book", said Andrew Holgate in the Sunday Times. Fiennes' portrait of his parents, and their dedication to family and Broughton Castle, is particularly touching. "Unfortunately, such delicacy often eludes the author when it comes to Richard," who doesn't come fully to life. On the contrary, said John Burnside in the Guardian, "Richard is a wonderfully vivid character: by turns foolish, sweet, aggressive, confused, irritating yet possessed of an odd, gawky charm." For all its sadness, "this is no misery memoir – it is a thoughtful and lyrical account of an extraordinary childhood".

FIRST POSTED APRIL 16, 2009