{"product_id":"hollow-isbn-9781640091610","title":"Hollow","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn NPR Best Book of the Year, \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of a professor whose life is unended after an unspeakable tragedy.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Oliver Bonds, a revered religious studies professor at the University of Texas, loses his toddler son and undergoes intense legal scrutiny over his involvement, grief engulfs him completely. His life as he knows it is over; Oliver loses his wife, home, and faith. Three years after his son's death, Oliver lives in a shack without electricity and frequents the soup kitchen where he used to volunteer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's only when befriended by Lyle, a con artist with a passion for theories of Hollow Earth, that Oliver begins to reengage with the world. Oliver too becomes convinced that the inside of the planet might contain a different realm. Desperate to find a place where he can escape his past, Oliver chases after the most unlikely of miracles. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith unforgettable characters, wild imagery, and dark humor, \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e explores the depths of doubt and hope, stretching past grief and into the space where we truly begin to heal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"With the kind of grace not usually seen in accessible modern fiction, Egerton also invokes many other things with this central metaphor . . . Ollie's voice is one of the most believable I've encountered this year, sustained by honesty, realism, and compassion. In his exile, Ollie has taken stock. His reckoning with the past creates the story's exquisite tension and makes the final scene bloom with tenderness . . . The core of \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is anything but.\" --NPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2017 PEN Southwest Book Award for Fiction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn NPR Best Book of 2017\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"With the kind of grace not usually seen in accessible modern fiction, Egerton also invokes many other things with this central metaphor . . . Ollie's voice is one of the most believable I've encountered this year, sustained by honesty, realism, and compassion. In his exile, Ollie has taken stock. His reckoning with the past creates the story's exquisite tension and makes the final scene bloom with tenderness . . . The core of \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is anything but.\" —\u003ci\u003eNPR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An incredibly imaginative examination of grief, faith, and the relationship between the two. Egerton spins out the story of Oliver Bonds, a former religious studies professor who loses everything when his toddler son dies under mysterious circumstances and Bonds’ involvement is scrutinized. Three years later, Bonds is living alone in a remote shack and eating at the soup kitchen he once volunteered for. A grifter with a belief in 'hollow earth' conspiracy theories is the unlikely catalyst for Bonds’ rebirth, as he latches onto a new kind of faith in his search for solace. An unexpectedly thrilling story of sadness and belief.\" —\u003ci\u003eBarnes \u0026amp; Noble Reads\u003c\/i\u003e pick, 12 Must-Read Indie Novels\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oliver Bonds, the protagonist of Austin writer Owen Egerton’s third novel, \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e, is a modern-day Job: a beloved religious studies professor at the University of Texas who, after his toddler son dies, hits bottom—and believes he might find some sort of solace in an undiscovered land at the center of the earth. There's profound sorrow to be found here, but great wit too: 'I pictured my monthly paycheck stretched over our expenses like a queen sheet on a king-sized bed.'\" —\u003ci\u003eTexas Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e grabs you, startlingly, with the poetry of its first sentence...and follows up with sardonic wit...and an existential quest...Hollow is off-beat, poignant, ultimately beguiling literary fiction.\" —\u003ci\u003eLone Star Literary Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I was blown away by Owen Egerton’s achingly beautiful, compulsively readable tale of a man who has lost his son, and himself. Hollow is filled to the brim with wonder and the sadness of being human, and I found myself laughing and tearing up on the same page. This is an adventure story with a tremendous heart. I couldn’t put it down.” —Sarah Hepola author of \u003ci\u003eBlackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I've long been a fan of Egerton's dark, probing, and often hilarious novels, but \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e takes it to the next level. Egerton has crafted a beautifully strange modern take on the 'Book of Job' populated with haunting and hilarious characters worthy of Vonnegut's best. A meditation on grief and love, \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is simultaneously heart wrenching and laugh-out-loud funny.” –Amanda Eyre Ward, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Same Sky\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is a work with an animate, vibrant, and awe-inducing core.\" —\u003ci\u003eForeward Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Surrounded by characters in various states of mourning, this narrative is a raw and beautiful exploration of grief and guilt.\" —\u003ci\u003eRead It Forward\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Owen Egerton has always used his abundant comedic gifts to explore serious, complex subjects--e.g., human frailty, faith and morality, love and connection, the funhouse of contemporary American culture--and \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is the book in which it all comes together, the work of a copiously talented writer at the top of his game. Our protagonist, a contemporary Job buckling under the weight of profound suffering and loss—his own, and that of those who surround him, too—is primed for a hero's journey that will get him right with the world again. But Hollow is a surprising book, one that eschews the expected, and his journey ends up being very different from the one he—or the reader—expects. There are no easy answers or tidy resolutions, but there's hard-won grace and a hell of a lot of humor along the way.\" —Doug Dorst, author of \u003ci\u003eS.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e, Owen Egerton has fashioned a heartbreaking, tragic, yet funny novel about a man facing a tragedy that would be, in anyone else's hands, almost impossible to read, but that, in his hands, is a story difficult to put down.\"\" —Manuel Gonzales, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Miniature Wife and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Regional Office is Under Attack!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\"I've long been a fan of Egerton's dark, probing, and often hilarious novels, but \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e takes it to the next level. Egerton has crafted a beautifully strange modern take on the 'Book of Job' populated with haunting and hilarious characters worthy of Vonnegut's best. A meditation on grief and love, \u003ci\u003eHollow\u003c\/i\u003e is simultaneously heart wrenching and laugh-out-loud funny.\" —Amanda Eyre Ward, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Same Sky\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eOwen Egerton\u003c\/b\u003e is one of the talents behind the award-winning The Sinus Show and Master Pancake Theater at the Alamo Drafthouse Theater, and for several years was the artistic director of Austin’s National Comedy Theatre. He’s written screenplays for Fox, Warner Brothers and Disney studios. He is also the author of the one-man play \u003ci\u003eThe Other Side of Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e and the novel \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Harold\u003c\/i\u003e, which is currently in development as a television series with Warner Bros. Television. He lives in Austin.","brand":"Counterpoint","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299916632293,"sku":"NP9781640091610","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781640091610.jpg?v=1767729140","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/hollow-isbn-9781640091610","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}