On a sun-faded street lined with modest shops, a humble bicycle repairman named Michael spends his days tightening bolts, mending wheels, and listening — quietly — to the stories that pass through his open door. Around him spins an entire world: a lottery seller who sells hope, a shoe mender who laughs through pain, a clothes vendor who restores dignity, a cookie lady who sweetens hardship, a rickshaw driver who carries burdens seen and unseen, and others — twelve souls in all, each a spoke in the great wheel of life.

Through Michael’s eyes, we witness the unseen heroism of the everyday — labor, love, loss, and endurance stitched into the fabric of a single neighborhood. Each life touches another, forming a circle of quiet humanity that reminds us that meaning often lives in the smallest gestures: a repaired chain, a shared cup of tea, a song played under a fading sun.

The Twelve Spokes of the Neighborhood is a luminous, deeply human novel that celebrates compassion without spectacle — a meditation on connection, dignity, and the beauty of work done with love. For listeners who cherish stories like The Remains of the Day, The Housekeeper and the Professor, or The Little Paris Bookshop, this tender portrait of community will linger long after the final tick.

Every street has its stories. Every hand that repairs also heals.