The Drowning People

Trudi Miller Rosenblum

This compelling tale grabs the listener's attention from the first sentence, in which the elderly narrator admits that he has murdered his wife of 45 years---yet her death was ruled a suicide, and no one suspects him at all. From that intriguing opening, he goes back to relate the story from the start, when he was naive, 17-year old aspiring violinist who became enchanted by a brash, young American heiress. Many Gothic twists and turns follow: a wealthy, respected family, known both for its palatial ancestral home and for a streak of hereditary insanity; look-alike female cousins, one British, one American; secret loves; broken engagements; betrayal; suicide; murder. Jarvis is phenomenal as always, evoking both the innocence of the young narrator and the world-weary experience of the older man telling tale. His voice creates distinct characters with ease.
— Billboard

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This precocious debut novel by Mason, an undergrad at Oxford University, opens on a catchy note: a man confessing to the murder of his wife. As the basis for a spoken audio, this provides a creepy and convincing structure. Jarvis, a British actor with a distinguished career as an audio narrator, capitalizes spiritedly on the moody conceit. The story unfolds into a larger tale of a life lived among elite English society. James Farrell, an Oxfordian violinist, relates his story of passion and murder in stylized tones, rising to gothic flourish when the events get especially hot and heavy. He tells how, at age 22, he fell for the beautiful stranger Ella Harcourt. This was the unrequited love that would eventually destroy him--leading him to marry, then murder, her sister. Now, as an old man, he casts a coldly objective eye on the path that delivered him to his terrible destiny. Posing as high literature, this slyly low, hothouse novel of morals, manners and murder plays especially wicked and fun when read aloud. Based on the 1999 Warner hardcover. (June) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This stunning novel of suspense, love, loss, and lies concerns James Farrell, a 70-year-old man who confesses to killing his wife of more than 40 years. Mason, a 21-year-old Oxford student, has captured the tone of a man weary with a lifetime of regret, mistakes, and missed opportunities. After Farrell confesses to the murder that he has successfully passed off as a suicide, he takes the listener through the life and the events that led to his act, the foundation of which was laid 50 years ago when he met Ella Harcourt, his wife's cousin. With cold and clear vision, he admits the mistakes he and Ella made due to youth and the wild intoxication of a consuming love. Just as accomplished and riveting is Tim Piggott-Smith's narration of this tale replete with complex relationships. He shifts times and ages of the characters effortlessly and is flawless in his portrayal of both emotion and personalities. Highly recommended.--Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Tobin Harshaw

The latest contender in the nihilism sweepstakes...
— The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

A 20-year Oxford student's precocious debut: dazzling in its inventive plot, persuasive in its mannerisms, and much too susceptible to mistaking agile chatter for deep wisdom. Mason has created a grabby premise: in an effort to explain why James Farrell has just killed Sarah, his wife of four decades, the now 70-year-old recalls the privileged, wainscoted, chandeliered, wealthy England of his youth—way back in the1990s. The story begins in 1994, with just a few closing pages devoted to the "present" in mid-21st century. James sees enigmatic Ella Harewood meditatively smoking on a park bench and falls immediately in love. Though she is engaged to be married, Ella discovers she shares James's covert disgust with convention, and together they conspire to upset the wedding plans. Though educated and raised in America, Ella confides to James that she stands to inherit Selon Castle and its island, a family property Ella's cousin Sarah yearns to inhabit. Conventional, restrained, and proper in the English way, Sarah develops an ardent jealousy of her spoiled cousin. Worse, Ella's groom is the one love of her life. The wedding is indeed disrupted, and Ella requires James to prove his love by setting in motion a series of events that end with the death of his best friend. James is stricken by grief and, after Ella apparently murders her father, he marries Sarah. Years later, on the eve of his 70th birthday, James discovers the cruel secret that leads to Sarah's death. Throughout, our protagonist considers the nature of time and memory, guilt and sin, etc., in pointless musings that impede the progress of an otherwise compelling, artfully revealed plot. Mason's prose isunremarkable, as is his distinctly unfascinating attempt at "larger themes," but his storytelling is solid and his sense of intrigue nicely developed. (Author tour)