Hollow Bones

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By Jodi Picoult ’87

Published Sept. 22, 2026

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult ’87 blends psychological suspense with explorations of memory, loss, and resilience in her latest novel Hollow Bones (Ballantine Books). The book follows Molly Fitzgerald, a woman whose life has been shaped by the September 11, 2001 attacks that took her mother before she was old enough to remember her. Molly now works as Rhode Island’s director of emergency preparedness, designing plans for storms, epidemics, and other crises. At home, her marriage to Jesse, a police polygraph expert with his own history of crisis, offers a sense of security, until the unexpected forces them both to question everything they thought they knew. Weaving between past and present, Hollow Bones examines the ways people prepare for catastrophe, construct narratives to make sense of the past, and the enduring ties that bind mothers and their daughters together. 

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PAW's October 2026 cover, featuring a photo of a loaf of challah bread and the headline "The Braids That Bind."
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