Short Synopsis
A powerful coming-of-age memoir of one girl's struggle, adrift in warrior culture.

Full Synopsis
At eighteen, Bailey Williams bolted from her strict Mormon upbringing to a Marine recruiting office to enlist as a 2600—a military linguist. But the first language the Marine Corps taught her wasn't Arabic, Farsi, or Dari. It was how Marines speak to, and about, women. There are only three kinds of women in the Marine Corps, she was told: you can be a bitch, a dyke, or a whore.

Determined to prove she's not whatever it is the men around her believe a woman to be, Private Williams turned to an eating disorder, intending to show her discipline through the visible testament of bone. She ran endurance distances on an increasingly Spartan diet, shoving through her own body's resistance.

Pushed to the brink by a leadership and a culture that demands women shrink themselves, she finally looked to the women around her, and began to wonder what else she was losing. Quietly but inexorably, the power of other women's stories whispered an alternative path to what it means to be a woman, and a warrior.

Hollow is a story for anyone whose identity has been prescribed to them—and has dared question if there is another way to live.

"[A] harrowing debut . . . William's unflinching recollections of self-harm and institutional misogyny are illuminating and infuriating, and she sounds a welcome note of optimism in the book's final pages. It's a staggering achievement." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"A visceral, powerful, and illuminating memoir of women, bodies, and the military. . . . Hollow is a necessary and compelling book." ---Kathleen Glasgow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces

"This is an astounding book about pain and the empowerment that rises out of it." ---David Abrams, author of Brave Deeds and Fobbit

"[A] brutal, riveting, and wry gut-punch of a story." ---Clare Frank, author of Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire

"Bailey William's memoir adds an important and under-represented voice to the genre of military memoir." ---Ben Kesling, author of Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath