Excerpt from The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It was ironic though. That James was so scared of never leaving this place, when Hollis was sure he'd make it out.

Hollis would have to stay though.

His bones belonged to this soil.

Home

They lived in a forgotten American dreamscape. A sliver cut from time.

There were other towns like it: coal towns, lumber towns. Places of Industry left to rot when some factory everyone worked at boarded up or government investment ran dry. Where people put down roots and built homes and schools and churches. Lives dependent on work.

An economy dependent on work.

Most of these kinds of towns eventually died. The young moved away, the elderly expired, and the wind turned their houses into wood and stone sculptures.

That was the best-case scenario.

The worst-case scenario was a town full of hungry people. Parents driving hours to other cities for work, paint peeling and metal rusting, time slowing and slowing until it stood still.

Good enough to keep things going. Not enough to ease anyone's suffering.

Just enough that people refused to move away.

They stayed, caught. They died there.

Hollis understood why it chilled the sweat on James's back.

Broad

Hollis peeled himself out of bed and wandered downstairs. He could smell spaghetti sauce from his room and now he was hungrier than he felt hurt.

His ma was on the couch burning through another episode of The King of Queens. Mrs. Brown was red-haired, broad-shouldered, and fine-boned like a bird. Pretty in a way that time couldn't snatch, and Hollis looked too much like her.

She caught his eye as he passed through the living room to the kitchen and whistled low.

"You're not staying home tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah," Hollis mumbled. "I gotta bake Yulia some bread later; she handled my copay. You need the oven?"

"What flavor are you doing?"

Hollis opened the pantry and scanned their jars and packages.

"We have a lot of sweet potatoes this year. Do you mind if I use cinnamon?"

"Do two loaves. One for her and one for us, then you can use as much cinnamon as you need."

Hollis could hear the grin in his mother's voice.

"Who was it this time? Someone strong, looks like. You gotta stop pissing off football players. Their love for me can only go so far to protect you, june bug."

Mrs. Brown was a PE teacher, and kids who played sports did tend to go a bit soft on Hollis because of it. Embarrassing as that was.

"It wasn't—Ugh. It was James Miller."

"Holly, leave that kid alone. Don't you think he's dealing with enough? His pa's been using the computer lab like an internet café, so his job search can't be going well. And Hannah can only pick up so many hours at the diner before she's working a twenty-four-hour shift."

Excerpted from The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum. Copyright © 2025 by K. Ancrum. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.