Conspiracies and paranoia sweep across England in the aftermath of the French Revolution, landing tea broker James Tilly Matthews in Bethlem Hospital, a notorious, crumbling home for the insane. Although delusional, Matthews also appears to be incarcerated for unspecified political reasons, a pawn in a cruel game of ambition and power.

Extraordinarily evocative of time and place, Bedlam sweeps the reader into a world teetering between darkness and light, love and hate. Intellectually daring and profoundly moving, this is another masterwork from a Governor General's Award–winning author.