The Corruption of Hollis Brown
K. Ancrum
Hardcover/ebook
ISBN: 9780063285835
HarperCollins, April 2025, 384 pgs

The Corruption of Hollis Brown is a surprising, entertaining, and overall great read. From the beginning, very short chapters lend a propulsive feeling to the writing. At first, this plays like snapshots of moments. The approach enables Ancrum to snap characters into place, one by one, effectively building and developing a larger, more complex picture, as each snapshot fits together with the ones before it. The combination of straightforward prose and short chapters gives everything immediacy, which goes well with the nature of the main character.

Hollis is an interesting guy. When we meet him, he is getting the shit kicked out of him, and, while he hates it, he also likes it in a sense. He may have an underlying self-destructive streak: he says things that he knows will get him in trouble, or he may just be acting out in frustration at living in a place which is so far from ideal. Then again, he may also just be exerting control over his life in one of the very few ways he can. This isn’t his only dangerous tendency, but he’s actually a really good and kind kid. He has a solid relationship with his parents—which I personally find refreshing (I am just so tired of film, TV, and other stories using inexplicably terrible kids who are bad to their parents, while also propping up the parents as perfectly fine); and his two friends are popular girls in school, which can create some tricky social situations. Physically, he is a combination of an awkward teen with striking feminine attractiveness, neither of which seems like an asset in a small town full of athletic bullies. Ancrum renders Hollis as even more interesting by giving him a lot of cool, fairly unique details, like the fact that he bakes, and the fact that he often goes to the haunted town to collect fruits . . .

Yes, there is a haunted town! An abandoned, strange place not far from where Hollis lives. At least, the locals believe it’s haunted, and since we know this book has supernatural leanings, we go into it assuming there’s some truth to it. Some of Ancrum’s best prose is delivered in describing the town, prose which is not necessarily flowery, but which is nonetheless precise and, importantly, effective at painting a picture which feels distinctive and moody. When the kids have a party in the haunted town, as readers, we know this is when the supernatural trouble is really getting started. Ancrum doesn’t disappoint: one of the teens gets hurt, and Hollis gets blamed by the adults, mostly. Oddly, the guys who beat him up may be jerks, but they don’t lie about what happened. This narrative choice is one of many that feels real and understandable, but also fresh; and in this case, as with several other narrative choices, the result is characters and situations which make the story even more unique, while still being grounded in possibility.

Ultimately, Hollis ends up in a dark emotional state, his sense of isolation exacerbated by extreme circumstances, plus that underlying and seriously relatable sense of wanting to be seen and understood, only now that need is sharper than ever. This is when Walt shows up, looking like a half-frozen kid out in the woods. Hollis’s kindness, even in his own time of struggle, provides a perfect circumstance for them to come together. Which would be fine . . . except that Walt is a ghost looking for a body to inhabit.

Ancrum is an expert at not getting too hung up on any particular thing. The narrative gives enough to make each moment happen: enough to land the emotion, action, and energy; and then it moves on to the next moment. Which isn’t to say there’s no introspection or worldbuilding, but it is to say that the moments don’t languish. The story never loses momentum. For me, the effect was a well-paced tale, leaning towards fast-paced if anything.

At the same time, it is still a story very much concerned with emotions and reflection. Through Hollis, we experience shifting views on relative positions in life: how miserable he is at times, and how miserable others are as well at times. This includes the various ways people we think don’t struggle might actually struggle, and how one’s experiences of misery, as terrible as they may be, could be overwhelmed by another’s even worse experiences. Hollis, being a well-fleshed out character, allows us to experience these things in the course of his expanding understanding of what it means to be human, even as this understanding comes through engagement with the supernatural.

Speaking of the supernatural: possession is not at all a new concept. It dates back long before the printing press, and the idea of possession exists in many cultures around the globe. If you do an internet search for “Movies about possession” you will come up with many results. Yet Ancrum makes the story feel new—through compelling characters and novel character interactions more than anything. The relationship between Hollis and Walter (and how things play out) is the centerpiece of the story, and it is writing worth reading. Each character is fascinating on their own, and together they are really entertaining. As things between them ramp up, the intensity Ancrum delivers becomes entirely engrossing.

There are a number of thought-provoking questions, throughlines, or themes at play. In my read, I think the book questions what it means to grow up, how growing up is defined or happens. It does this by utilizing the idea of the ghost of a teen, and considering how growing up and changing as a person reflects the experience of continuously living and moving through the changing world. Another theme I see is the exploration of who we choose to be, in contradistinction to who we believe we “just are.” The book explores this by giving someone else control of a body within a specific set of circumstances and experimenting with what happens when that person makes slightly different choices than the original person would; or usually does. The book also seems to question what comprises a relationship, both in terms of friendships as well as relationships that are more intense or intimate. It does this by showing different kinds of relationships, from the expected to the extraordinary, and showcasing various modalities of connection. These aren’t the only discussions I believe the book is engaged in, but I think part of the joy of reading is often in finding what meanings the story might hold for you. With this book, I think this is especially true. There are so many wonderful questions to find, so I’ll leave some of the rest unspoken here.

I will note that, among other things, I think this book is about community, and history. Community can look like many things, and communities often change over time (or remain the same in significant ways, while changing in others). In Hollis and Walt, because of the differences in their experiences, Ancrum has the perfect device to examine a community from various angles, and to investigate what change looks like, what it means, how it can happen, and the ways that truth can be warped or can be described in different ways, depending on who the person describing it is.

I think the book is also about complicated, somewhat broken people finding each other and making life better for living it together. In the course of two main characters finding each other and being able to “see” each other in ways that surpass the normal, and by comparing this level of intimacy to “being seen” by friends, parents, peers, and the rest, the story explores what it means to be truly seen and understood by someone. And, of course, there are many kinds of transformations that happen throughout, so it could be said that the book is also about transformations.

There are so many other cool things about The Corruption of Hollis Brown, but I’ll leave those for your own discovery. I greatly enjoyed the read, and if you like what I’ve laid out here, I encourage you to go pick up a copy and let Ancrum light up your imagination.