The Music Room (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Dennis McFarland
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: August, 1976, with flashbacks to prior years
- Setting: Manhattan, New York; Norfolk, Virginia; Newport, Rhode Island; and San Francisco, California
- Principal Characters: Martin Lambert, Perry Lambert, Rudy Lambert, Helen Lambert, Jane Owlcaster, Raymond, Madeline Lambert, Felicia Snow and Little Teddy, Max Doloroy, Faye Barrymore
- Genres: Long fiction, Mystery and detective literature
- Subjects: Family or family life, Memory, Suicide, Music or musicians, Alcoholism or alcoholics, Substance abuse, Brothers, Death or dying, Self-revelations
- Locales: Manhattan, NY, San Francisco, CA, Newport, RI, Norfolk, VA
In the novel’s opening scene, Marty Lambert vacuums the hundred self-adhesive glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling of the nursery that would have belonged to his firstborn child. Months earlier his wife suffered a second miscarriage, and he and his wife are now separated. The phone rings and a New York detective informs him that his brother Perry is dead, having thrown himself off the twenty-third floor of a midtown hotel. In the general wash of his own marital failures and disappointments, Marty’s first impulse is to feel sorry for himself. It is a self-pity which, on the way to...
[The entire page is 1944 words long]
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