PBS Books Readers Club welcomes prolific author Jodi Picoult to discuss her newest novel Hollow Bones. The episode premieres on September 24th at 8PM ET as a PBS Books Facebook Live event, on the PBS Books YouTube channel, pbsbooks.org, and the PBS app.
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Hollow Bones follows 25-year-old Molly Fitzgerald, the youngest director of the Rhode Island Department of Emergency Preparedness, whose job is to imagine the unimaginable: storms, epidemics, plane crashes, and other worst-case scenarios, in order to create plans that could save lives. For Molly, this vigilance is deeply personal. On September 11, 2001, when she was just two months old, her mother went to an appointment at the World Trade Center and never came home. Raised in a loving home but shaped by that loss, Molly has spent her life alert to the possibility of disaster.
Now, as an adult building a future with her husband, Jesse, Molly believes preparedness can offer control in an uncertain world. But when the unexpected disrupts the life they have carefully built, she is forced to confront everything she thought she knew.
Moving between past and present, Hollow Bones explores the fragile line between preparation and fear, the enduring bonds between mothers and daughters, and the ways hidden truths can alter the course of a life.
As Jodi reflects, “This [book] has, I think, more twists than any of my books all put together… But if you don’t leave breadcrumbs, then you’re just really writing a sucker punch. So, I think my job is to make sure that I’m leaving you clues so that you can go back and go, ‘How did I miss that the first time around?’… that to me is good writing.”
Hollow Bones is Jodi Picoult’s 30th novel. A New York Times bestselling author, Picoult is known for books including Mad Honey, By Any Other Name, Small Great Things, and My Sister’s Keeper. Her work is celebrated for exploring difficult moral and ethical questions with nuance, compassion, and emotional depth. In this episode, the PBS Books Readers Club will discuss Picoult’s latest novel while also looking back at her expansive career and the themes that have made her one of today’s most widely read and prolific authors.
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PBS Watch-Alike: Generation 9/11
At the dawn of the 21st century, the September 11 attacks and their aftermath reshaped the nation and profoundly affected a generation growing up in the shadow of tragedy. Twenty years later, this intimate film follows seven people who lost parents that day, tracing how their lives have unfolded through personal loss, national crisis, and the long search for identity, resilience, and meaning.
Available to stream now on pbs.org and the PBS App.
