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The Memory Ward Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From critically acclaimed author Jon Bassoff, The Memory Ward is a haunting Russian doll of a novel about one man’s attempt to discover what’s real and what isn’t …
They say it’s always beautiful in Bethlam, Nevada. No place you’d rather live. The people are friendly, if a little nosy, and there’s no crime to speak of. Life is pretty perfect.
But postal worker Hank Davies has started to suspect something is off in this idyllic little town. And he’s certain of that when he realizes the letters he’s been delivering are just blank pages.
Hank isn’t the only one who’s noticed the oddities in Bethlam. One such person knocks on his window in the middle of the night, urging him to investigate his bedroom wall. When Hank pulls back the wallpaper, he discovers dozens of sheets of paper, full of a story that is either complete madness or unbelievable truth. As he begins looking beyond the veneer of his smiling neighbors and their white picket fences, Hank is drawn further and further into a disturbing new reality …
Told in Bassoff’s lyrical and evocative style, The Memory Ward is a disquieting page-turner that examines the nature of identity, trauma, and what it means to be human.
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“Jon Bassoff’s The Memory Ward mixes the page-turning momentum of a beach read bent on thrills with eerie and mysterious Twilight Zone vibes. This exploration of the subjectivity of memory and self spirals down into the darkness beneath the idyllic town of Bethlam and demands we contemplate the disturbing truth of who we are (or aren’t). Fun and weirdly funny until its final-act trap springs, The Memory Ward merges the psychological thriller with the literary horror novel to unsettling results.”
— Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of The Loop
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“Fans of Iain Reid will love this chilling psychological tale. Written with a timeless quality, The Memory Ward is mysterious, clever, and unnerving—a book to be read quickly that demands further thought after the final page is turned.”
— Zoje Stage, USA Today bestselling author of Baby Teeth -
“Bassoff’s uncanny Bethlam, Nevada, hits the map to stand toe-to-toe with eerie heavyweights Stepford, Connecticut, and Twin Peaks, Washington.”
— Warren Hammond, author of KOP and Denver Moon -
“Half waking dream, half living nightmare, The Memory Ward is a palpitating descent into a verisimilitude of madness that could only be written by one of the very best in the game, Jon Bassoff.”
— Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mystery series -
“Jon Bassoff is a master of that territory where pulp becomes poetry, and crime fiction mates with horror.”
— Ramsey Campbell, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Ancient Images -
“The Memory Ward is a twisty sci-fi mystery sure to delight fans of Black Mirror and any reader who was thrilled to discover Philip K. Dick paperbacks at their local library branch.”
— Molly Tanzer, author of Vermilion and Creatures of Will and Temper -
“Bassoff’s Memory Ward is one of those rare jewels: a page-turner that’s conceptually spectacular. If The Truman Show and The Crying of Lot 49 had an incredibly weird, wonderful baby, The Memory Ward would be it. Couldn’t put it down.”
— Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse, a New York Times editors’ pick -
“The Memory Ward is a mystery box of a novel that you will delight in unraveling—a true mind-bender that expertly subverts your expectations and will leave you wondering how Bassoff pulled it off. I dare you to put this down once you start it.”
— Rob Hart, bestselling author of Assassins Anonymous -
“This book scared the shit out of me so much I had to close my blinds one night while reading. It’s also funny as hell. And that’s where Jon Bassoff gets you, in that bizarrely tense space between unsettled and funny and heart-warming. I don’t know what or who is real anymore. I’m still shook!”
— Steven Dunn, author of Potted Meat -
“The Memory Ward is a nestling doll of horror and suspense. Bassoff artfully crafts a novel that questions morality, free will, and what makes us human. Compelling from the first page to the last.”
— Erin E. Adams, Bram Stoker Award finalist and Edgar Award-winning author of Jackal
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About Jon Bassoff
Jon Bassoff is the author of ten novels, several of which have been translated into French and German. His mountain-gothic novel, Corrosion, was nominated for the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, France’s biggest crime fiction award, and his debut novel, The Disassembled Man, was recently adapted for the big screen. For his day job, Bassoff teaches high school English in Longmont, Colorado. He is a connoisseur of tequila, hot sauces, psychobilly music, and fleabag motels.
About the Narrators
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Dawn Harvey has been performing for as long as she has been able to walk and talk and sing. She was already a stage and film actress when she began her voice-over career and now is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator.
Janina Edwards, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a native of Chicago and a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts acting program. Her 2016 performance of Voice of Freedom was a finalist for the Audie Award.