The Music Room

by Laura Kalpakian

Young Marcella McNeill's family are always rehearsing: her father is an actor, her mother Valerie an aspiring opera singer, her grandmother Gloria a renowned violinist. During the summer of 1969 - after their parents' bitter divorce - Marcella and her little sister Rose-Renee are sent to live with their enigmatic grandmother in her decaying countryside mansion. Instructed never to disturb the formidable woman as she endlessly rehearses in the music room, the children are left to run wild. They form a relationship with their cheerful neighbour Dorothea, who convinces their grandmother to allow the girls to be home-schooled with her sickly son, Rodney. Dorothea recognizes and nurtures the children's gifts in ways they have never before experienced. That autumn, their wayward aunt Linda returns home with a drawling, Arkansas boyfriend in tow. The struggles between mother and daughter - Gloria angry that Linda has abused and denied her gifts, Linda attacking her mother's musical delusions - create a storm of clashing egos. The Music Room is a novel of arrogance and artistry, of sacrifice and negligence, of delusion and conviction, of interminable rehearsal and profound performance. It is a story of love muddied with need, expedience, and opportunism - as love always is.

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2015