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"Hollow Bones" Reviewed by Susan Ferguson
“Hollow Bones,” by Jodi Picoult, is a contemporary mother-daughter story that centers around the horrifying reality of postpartum psychosis. (think Lindsay Clancy) The book also touches on emotional and social issues such as COVID, 9/11 and mental illness. The well-developed characters provide multiple points of view that move between the past and present.
The book opens in 2026 with Molly Fitzgerald, Chief of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the Rhode Island Department of Health, handling a crisis, a plane crash. Molly understands disasters, having been a victim of 9/11.
Molly’s mother Eloise went to a doctor’s appointment at the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11 and never came home. Molly was two months old. She is now 26 and married to Jesse, a police polygraph expert who is 10 years her senior.
Jesse has had his own family crisis. He is the adult brother of Anna, a character in Picoult’s novel “My Sister’s Keeper,” which is a fun little twist. Molly has had to learn to balance the trauma of her past with the daily catastrophes of her job. When Molly becomes pregnant, we are introduced to a new character, Eloise, and a new twist.
Eloise is Molly’s, supposedly, deceased mother who has been living in Atlanta under a new identity, Georgia. Readers soon learn Eloise’s backstory. Eloise has never stopped loving Molly. It is this undying love that caused her to abandon her daughter on 9/11 and it is this same love that brings her back to Rhode Island 25 years later. Eloise battled undiagnosed postpartum psychosis and now fears that Molly may as well. Eloise/Georgia intentionally positions herself in a job in Rhode Island that allows her to watch over Molly.
“Hollow Bones” is full of heartache and hardship. It’s flawed, complex characters have good intentions and good hearts. The book touches on many social issues and emotional themes. It has plenty of family drama and some twists that will keep readers thinking long after they’ve finished the book. Although it has some political undertones, unlike other Picoult novels, they are negligeable in this easy quick-read.
