The Archive of Ache

About this book

In the industrial ruins of Youngstown, Ohio, Harold Whitaker lives a solitary life restoring antique books and guarding his late wife's journals. His isolation is breached when he volunteers at the Memory Exchange, a pop-up oral history project housed in an abandoned steel mill. There, he meets Priya Kapoor, an overworked radiologist struggling with the emotional toll of her profession. When Harold meticulously restores a damaged audio cassette belonging to Priya's late father, it sparks a clandestine exchange of personal artifacts between them. As a corporate tech firm threatens to demolish the mill to build a data center, and personal crises—an estranged son for Harold, a malpractice audit for Priya—threaten to overwhelm them, the two must decide whether to retreat into their protective shells or stand together to defend the fragile, analog memories of a discarded city.

Book details

Genres:

Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction

Language:

en

Published:

2026-03-05

Content rating:

PG