Excerpt from One of Us by Dan Chaon, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

EXORDIUM

They was born out the same womb, two minutes apart, Rosalie says, and her head lolls back. Her eyes stare at the ceiling.

They was born 1901, November of the eighth. A girl came forth and—

Pullt out her brother with the cord wrapped round his foot—

Drug him into the daylight—

* * *

Rosalie seems to smile sleepily, not blinking even as a mosquito alights on the glossy surface of her cornea.

Murderers, she says.

Rosalie twitches, her hands gnarling against her chest. A spasm runs across her face as a cool damp cloth is pressed to her forehead. A viscid breath rattles in her throat.

Eleanor is the girl's name, she whispers. The boy's name is Bolt.

* * *

There is a growth at the back of Rosalie's skull about the size of a gourd, and it seems to have a face, though of course many things resemble faces when they are not. Two soft bulges on the deformity are damp and shiny as peeled hard-boiled eggs, and could be said to look like eyes; an indentation in the center appears to be a pair of nostrils; and below it, a slit—an open wound? a pair of lips?—seems to move when Rosalie speaks.

They are coming, Rosalie says. They will be—most useful.

Excerpted from One of Us by Dan Chaon. Copyright © 2025 by Dan Chaon. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.