Bedlam Burning

At Cambridge University, Dr. John Bentley hosts book burning parties where guests voice complaints about their least favorite books before burning them. At one such gathering, Gregory Collins, a brilliant but shy student, befriends the handsome Mike Smith, and their friendship soon becomes unusual. When Gregory's novel *The Wax Man* is published, he persuades Mike to pose as the author on the book jacket. This leads to Mike being invited to work as a writer-in-residence at an asylum run by Dr. Eric Kincaid, whose therapeutic approach emphasizes literature's healing potential. After Mike assembles a collection of the inmates' writings that achieves literary success, the situation takes a darker turn. This novel explores academia, mental illness, and the uncertain boundary between them.