Memory Falls

Returning home can uncover the past you never left behind. Foreign correspondent Marcus Aurelius Hardy comes back to Niagara Falls when his aging mother, Elen, wanders barefoot in a snowstorm. As an Armenian American, Elen is haunted by the ghosts of the Genocide that tore her family apart, and Marcus carries a secret that, if revealed, could shatter the bond between them. At home, he reconnects with his estranged father, a would-be rock star whose absence left deep scars, and with Arch Printup, his childhood friend, still haunted by a cousin’ s mysterious death over the Falls. In a town shaped by memory, grief, and loss, every decision echoes with the past, and every relationship carries the weight of history.

A former Peace Corps volunteer and U.S. foreign service officer, Mark Jacobs has pub-lished more than 200 stories in magazines including The Hudson Review, The Atlantic, Play-boy, The Baffler, The Iowa Review, and The Kenyon Review. Memory Falls is his seventh book. He speaks Spanish, Turkish, and Guaraní .