Bedlam Burning

by Geoff Nicholson

The acclaimed author of Bleeding London spins a yarn of academia, lunacy, and the blurry lines between them in this Whitbread Prize–finalist novel.   It all starts at Cambridge University, where Dr. John Bentley throws his book burning parties—“a little active, symbolic literary criticism”—in which guests are invited to state their grudges against their least favorite books, and then toss them into a fire. It is at one such party that the brilliant but sheepish Gregory Collins meets Mike Smith, a handsome classmate. They become fast friends. And then their friendship takes a decidedly strange turn.   When Gregory’s first novel, The Wax Man, is published, he convinces Mike to take his place on the book jacket. Now Mike is the one invited to be a writer-in-residence at an insane asylum run by Dr. Eric Kincaid, whose obscure therapeutic philosophy centers on the soothing powers of literature. When Mike compiles a book of the inmates’ writings, and it becomes a literary success, this comedy of errors threatens to take another, far darker turn.  “Completely addictive and very, very funny. Great.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of A Gambler’s Anatomy  “Donald Westlake meets Ken Kesey in this . . . compulsively good read.” —Library Journal

Genres: Fiction, Humor, British Literature

378 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Geoff Nicholson was a British novelist and nonfiction writer. He was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Essex.

The main themes and features of his books include leading characters with obsessions, characters with quirky views on life, interweaving storylines and hidden subcultures and societies. His books usually contain a lot of black humour. He has also written three works of nonfiction and some short stories. His novel Bleeding London was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.

Reviews

[Nik Maack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overly long and eventually tedious. A strong opening quickly devolves into rambling. Our narrator is emotionally detached from everything. The plot just goes on and on and on. Characters are very weakly described.

It's pretentious, even as it mocks people for being pretentious. Ironic while ironically mocking irony. It's so far up its own ass that it emerges and looks at itself up its own ass and declares itself brilliant for being aware how up its own ass it is.

I liked the premise. I liked the first few chapters. But by the end I was skimming, just hoping it would goddamn end. The last chapter is an epilogue where everything is neatly wrapped up and the narrator reveals that all of these events led him to write the book you are now holding in your hands. I cannot explain why, but that specific type of ending has always made me depressed and weary.

I have enjoyed other books by this author. I did not enjoy this one.

[Joe Stafura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good characters and enough humor

Bedlam Burning has a fantastical plot line that seems somewhere between Kafka and Burroughs way of storytelling. The summer camp like descriptions of the asylum add to the strange journey to a strange series of outcomes.
Fun to read and interesting most of the way.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the plot a good one, but the telling just dragged on for me. Not a good sign when you're glad you're done with a book.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a just a little underwhelmed by "Bedlam Burning". A tale of two Oxbridge (I've forgotten which exactly) graduates who foist an identity hoax to help get a novel publicized. The one who wrote the novel, "Gregory Collins", is homely and insecure. The one who adopts Collins' identity (Mike Smith) is underemployed, handsome and socially at ease. As one does, they create a persona who does book readings and ...

...Mike ends up in a mental asylum as a writer-in-residence who puts together a book of the patient's ramblings that is a literary spectacle, until you know what inevitably happens.

The underwhelming part for me was Smith's unbelievable ability to just go along with things - like showing up at the mental asylum and immediately being put into a rubber room overnight. This made me think that we had a very unreliable narrator and there was something beneath the text we were supposed to gradually glom onto, like Mike was really a mental patient and he has created this bizarre story of being a double to explain to himself why he is in a mental institution. But the novel doesn't go there - at least if his was being unreliable in this aspect I didn't catch any other clues.

The good parts do make it worth reading - the academic satire of a literary prof who burns books, the patients who might really be sane but if they were sane why were they pretending to be mad - and of course their antics are amusing, the doctor and his cohort who are well-meaning but clueless. If there is anything that the book is "about", I could only guess is that it is hard to judge what people are beneath their exterior and even their actions can be hard to interpret. Maybe it is only the stories they tell, whether true or not, are what can be judged.

[Jah (_soshereads_) Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Gregory Collins wrote his first novel, he was worried that his debut book wouldn’t sell well or garner much attention from the media because he wasn’t as physically attractive as he thought an author should be. He approached his attractive associate Mike Smith after a book-burning party with the brilliant idea of leveraging his image to support his book. Even though his girlfriend Nicola urged him against it, Mike decided to impersonate Gregory since he thought it would be a kind gesture. At a book signing, Mike was approached by a member of the Kincaid Clinic, a mental asylum, to be a writer-in-residence, where he is to inspire the patients to write. He has no idea how his life will change in this new chapter.

Click the link to read full review

https://soshereadsbooks.com/geoff-nic...

[Marguerite Hargreaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot to this rather small book. A comedy of errors that is at times wickedly funny, it also raises questions about the effects of a media-saturated culture on the psyche, mental illness, pop remedies, writing as therapy, academia and more. I enjoyed the journey, up till the last 30 pages. The wrap-up was rushed and too tidy, though it kept me guessing.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off so strong but by the middle it had lost its steam. Pretty surprising ending though...

[jobiwan6 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A def 3 + 1/2 stars. I actually chuckled in a few places, and will be looking for more by this author.