Apex Hides the Hurt

by Colson Whitehead

The book is set in the fictional town of Winthrop. He travels to the town of Winthrop after requests from the town council, which has proposed that the town be renamed. However, three key citizens disagree what the name should be: Albie Winthrop, descendant of the town's namesake (who'd made his fortune in barbed wire); Regina Goode, the mayor (descendant of one of the town's two founders); and Lucky Aberdeen, a software magnate who's leading the drive to rename the town. Winthrop wants to keep the name; Goode wants the town to revert to the name it bore at its founding as a town of free blacks, Freedom; while Aberdeen wants to call it "New Prospera".

As the consultant talks with the residents of the town and investigates its history, the backstory of his injury is gradually revealed. After repeatedly stubbing his toe and covering it up with Apex bandages, the consultant accidentally stepped into pig feces during a company team retreat. Because of the colored bandage, he never discovered how his toe was badly infected, and fainted on the sidewalk after fleeing from an awards party. This led to the amputation of his toe, his departure from the nomenclature firm, and the beginning of his hermetic lifestyle.

After much deliberation, the consultant decides on the name "Struggle", the original idea of the other of the two original founders, Field. Following this, the consultant promptly returns home, where his foot injury continues to bother him even more than before.