The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood Narrated by Ralph Lister

Overview

Bright, bookish Oscar Lowe has escaped the squalid urban neighborhood where he was raised and made a new life for himself amid the colleges and spires of Cambridge. He has grown to love the quiet routine of his life as a care assistant at a local nursing home, where he has forged a close friendship with its most ill-tempered resident, Dr. Paulsen.

All that changes one fateful day when Oscar, while wandering the bucolic grounds of Cambridge, is lured into the chapel at Kings College by the otherwordly sound of an organ. It is here that he meets and falls in love with Iris Bellwether, a beautiful and enigmatic medical student. Drawn into her world of scholarship and privilege, Oscar soon becomes embroiled in the strange machinations of Iris's older brother, Eden.

A charismatic but troubled musical prodigy, Eden convinces his sister and their close-knit circle of friends to participate in a series of disturbing experiments. Eden believes that music - with his expert genius to guide it - can cure people. As the line between genius and madness begins to blur, however, Oscar fears that it is danger and not healing that awaits them all - but it might be too late. . . .

A masterful work of psychological suspense and emotional resonance from a brilliant young talent, The Bellwether Revivals will hold readers spellbound until its breathtaking conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

This novel begins with the denouement: two people lie dead, and a third sits nearby, barely breathing. After this gripping opener, Wood slows down—way down—to lure readers into the lives of the Bellwethers, a wealthy English family, through Oscar Lowe, a caregiver at a nursing home who is drawn into a chapel by Eden Bellwether's brilliant musicianship. There he meets Eden's sister, Iris, a lovely cellist and student of medicine. He becomes part of the siblings' group of friends, occasional guest at the estate, and boyfriend to Iris. This is no class polemic, but rather an exploration of obsession, denial, and loyalty, explored through Iris's concern over the emotional stability of her brother, who believes that his music can heal. Though Oscar, and then Iris, both experience Eden's beliefs firsthand, Iris persuades Oscar to engage an authority on Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with the hope of diagnosing Eden. As Oscar becomes more involved, Iris's commitment falters, and Eden's erratic behavior—particularly his reaction to his parents' plan to sell the estate and move the family to France—foreshadows inevitable tragedy. Some readers will wish that Wood had written with more energy, but in building both Oscar's character and his story with restraint verging on the austere, he has created a highly engaging debut. Agent: Grainne Fox, Fletcher & Company. (June)

JULY 2012 - AudioFile

Ralph Lister is perfectly cast as Oscar Lowe—a once lovely single English gent who works as a care assistant near Cambridge University. He describes with elegant candor how Oscar's satisfactorily humdrum routine fatefully changes when he’s drawn into King’s College Chapel by the inviting music. There he meets the charming Iris Bellwether and her peculiar brother, Eden, a musical intellect. Unfamiliar with this world of privilege, Oscar finds himself in strange territory that includes Eden’s mad psychological experiments, which claim to cure by way of music and hypnotism. Lister transitions among characters with perfect accuracy—from the highbrow friends and parents of Iris and Eden to the genteel elderly doctor who is in Oscar’s care. Lister provides a spellbinding tour de force. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Eden Bellwether, an organ scholar at King's College, Cambridge, has the idea he can heal through the power of music, but Wood raises the possibility that Eden has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and is thus suffering from delusions about his powers. The Bellwether family is characterized by both brilliance and eccentricity--and perhaps the two inevitably go together. Eden's sister Iris is a medical student at Cambridge and a fine musician in her own right, a cellist rather than an organist, and she bounces between unflappable adoration of her brother and suspicion that he might be a pathological case study. One autumn evening, Oscar Lowe, a nurse's assistant at a local nursing home, cuts across the King's College grounds and is attracted by the sonorous sound of an organ. On this fateful evening he meets Eden and Iris. Despite their differences Oscar and Iris feel an immediate, quirky attraction for one another, and they quickly become lovers. Oscar, though highly intelligent and well read, has found for himself a path other than academia, but he feels himself drawn in by the undeniable charisma of the Bellwethers. His favorite patient at the nursing home is Abraham "Bram" Paulsen, a former distinguished professor of English, whose friendship with Herbert Crest, a brilliant psychologist, leads to a complicated and volatile mixture of personalities and motives. When Iris breaks her leg, Eden seems to heal her through a bizarre regimen of physical and musical therapy. Crest becomes intrigued with Eden's putative powers, at least in part because the psychologist is dying of a malignant brain tumor, so his professional--and skeptical--motives become entangled with his personal ones, the latter characterized by Delusions of Hope, the book he's desperately trying to finish writing before his death. Wood moves the reader deftly through pastoral Cambridge, into the British upper crust, and ultimately into the mad mind of Eden himself.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172473975
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	06/28/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,155,393

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