Title: The Bell
First published: July 2000
Description: A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved whatever that may mean...Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel is about religion, the fight between good and evil and the terrible accidents of human frailty.
Subjects: Fiction, Married women, Gay men, Church bells, Religious communities, Literature, British and irish fiction (fictional works by one author), Married people, fiction, Fiction, psychological, Gay men, fiction, England, fiction
Places: Gloucestershire (England)