The Memory Ward

· Blackstone Publishing · Narrated by Bronson Pinchot, Dawn Harvey, and Janina Edwards
3.0
1 review
Audiobook
8 hr 34 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

3.0
1 review
BR1NA
May 29, 2025
The various audiobook narrators were all great and I was gripped by the story until the very end when things continued to twist... The core premise is great and conveyed very effectively, but where it ultimately goes I just didn't enjoy. It's incredibly hard to discuss without spoilers, but it is very clear from the title, blurb, and intial pages that mental health plays a bit part in this book. I am someone with complex post traumatic stress disorder, autism, and ADHD. I have been living with and suffering the negative effects on mental health my entire life, so this is a topic I am invested in and absolutely have skin in the game as it were. I also read Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street recently, which has some broadly similar themes and horrific things referenced. Ward's exquisite and heartbreaking book and the incredible author's note speak to a serious understanding and respect for mental health and it's portrayal and handling in fiction.
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About the author

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.

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 Earphone Award–winning narrator, is a graduate of the acting program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

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