The Library of Traumatic Memory

Bloomsbury presents The Library of Traumatic Memory by Neil Jordan, read by Stephen Rea.

The first literary science fiction novel from Neil Jordan, visionary director of The Company of Wolves and Interview with the Vampire

In a windswept corner of a forgotten peninsula, love and loss echo through the halls of a mansion built on secrets. Here memory is currency of the future, and the past refuses to stay buried.

In the year 2084, Christian Cartwright, a quiet librarian at the enigmatic Huxley Institute, spends his days archiving the world’s most painful memories in the Library of Traumatic Memory.

But when his lover Isolde dies in a mysterious car crash, Christian secretly resurrects her as a digital consciousness — an act of grief, obsession, and defiance.

As Christian navigates a world where memories can be edited, dreams harvested, and the dead made to speak, he uncovers a deeper conspiracy buried in the Institute’s foundations — one that stretches back centuries to his 18th-century ancestor Montagu Cartwright, the architect of the Huxley Mansion.

Montagu’s obsidian mirror and copper model may hold the key to a reality where architecture shapes fate and time loops back on itself.

Blending gothic mystery, speculative science, and philosophical depth, The Library of Traumatic Memory is a haunting meditation on love, loss, and the ethics of memory.

As the past and future collide, Christian must decide what it means to remember — and what it costs to forget.©2026 Neil Jordan (P)2026 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc