What Do College Basketball, Chicken Farming and Indie Films Have in Common? InRun for the Hills, We'll Find Out (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Buckle your seatbelts and get those rest stop snacks ready: Kevin Wilson’s new road trip novel trods familiar territory, but in an exciting new way.

InRun for the Hills, out May 13, 2025 from Ecco, an unexpected road trip brings a family together with heart, hijinks and humor dryer than a drought-riddled dust bowl.

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As Mad and Rube embark on a madcap adventure and share stories of their father, they start to wonder: Who was he, really? What are they to each other? And what does all of this mean for them?

LeighAnne Couch

“I’m really honored and excited to share an excerpt of my upcoming novel,Run for the Hills,with the readers of PEOPLE,“Wilson says in an exclusive statement.

“Like all of my books, it’s about family, how we open our hearts to accept new people into our lives, even as we reconcile with the people who left us. It’s also about many of my favorite things — organic chicken farming, college basketball, indie filmmaking and California art communes.”

Intrigued? Read an exclusive excerpt fromRun for the Hills, below.

Mad looked up to see a car driving down the dirt road, a PT Cruiser, which was not a car that you saw in this area. It was not, she considered further, a car that made much sense in pretty much any area, the absurd mixture of too-far-in-the-past and too-far-into-the-future, but dirt roads made PT Cruisers seem especially ridiculous, like the slightest bump would send it upside-down like a bug.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” she offered.

“Nice day?” he asked, like he wondered if, on this farm, the day would be considered nice to people like her.

“Yeah, I think so,” she replied. “Nice day.”

“Oh, good! I think so, too.”

“Are you lost?” she asked.

“Are you Madeline Hill?” he blurted out.

“Madeline Hill?” she asked, making sure she’d heard him correctly. Only her mother called her Madeline. Everyone else called her Mad, an invention of her father, who loved nicknames. Not Mads, which was worse than Madeline. Mad Hill.

“I’m looking for her.”

“That’s me, yes,” she said.

“And — sorry, I’m nervous.” He fumbled for the next word but couldn’t quite get it. She was so interested in his face, the strangeness of it, something about it making her want to stare at him even longer, however uncomfortable it was.

“Were you born on June 1, 1975?” he asked suddenly, as if he hadn’t heard her.

“Who are you?” she finally asked, and the man, so pale, turned red. He was sweating in the sun, blinking rapidly.

“I’m your brother,” he answered. “My name is Reuben Hill.”

“My brother?” What the hell,” she offered. “What a bizarre thing. A dude in a PT Cruiser shows up at my farm, and he’s my brother.”

“Half brother,” he offered. “We’re half siblings.”

She thought for a second. “Dad. Of course, Dad.”

“Yes, our dad. Charles Hill.”

“Chuck.”

“Yeah, Chuck Hill.”

“He called me Mad.”

“Mad? Like, angry?”

“Who knows, honestly? He just liked the way it sounded. But, can I tell you this? I haven’t seen our dad in over 20 years. He left us.”

“I haven’t seen him in over 30,” he admitted. “He left us, too.” The man, Reuben or Rube or whatever, her brother or half brother or whatever, looked down at the ground. When he looked back up at her, he was crying a little, his eyes red.

“Jesus,” Mad replied, “I’m sorry.” She didn’t go to him, didn’t know how to comfort this person. But she was sorry. It wasn’t hard to say. “Do you want to come to the house?” she asked him. “Sit down? Have some iced tea or something? Have you eaten?”

“I would love to sit down,” he admitted.

“Come on,” she told him.

This wasn’t supposed to be how a family worked. Family was just there when you appeared in the world, waiting for you. Each new addition after that, you had time to prepare, to make a place for them in your heart. The only danger was reduction, the numbers thinning out, people leaving. You weren’t supposed to suddenly get a new family at 11 o’clock on a Saturday after the farm stand had sold out of eggs.

All she could do was stand next to this man, older than her, her brother, she supposed. Half brother, she supposed. But he wasn’t her brother yet in any discernible fraction. It would take time. They had a long walk to the house. So she started to walk, leading the way.

“I’ve never had a brother or a sister,” she remarked, looking out across the fields, the sun so bright.

“Me, either,” Rube replied. He kept a respectful distance now, walking exactly in the footsteps that she made.

“I’m gonna need some time to get used to it,” she admitted.

“Mad?” he asked. His voice was quieter, and she realized that he had stopped walking.

“What? What is it?”

“There’s more of us,” he finally said. “More kids.”

“Dad’s?”

“Yeah. We have other siblings.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s a lot to handle,” he admitted. “When I saw you, I just felt like I could tell you. I felt like maybe you and I could figure it out.”

“We don’t know each other. You don’t know me. I could be so awful, you know?”

“I don’t think you are,” he said.

“What was wrong with our dad? God, what an idiot.”

“You haven’t wondered where he was?”

“I haven’t. He left. He didn’t want to stay. He doesn’t deserve my thinking of him. And it sounds like he didn’t care. He just made more of us.”

“Would you want to find him?” he asked.

“Let’s just keep walking,” she said, because she wasn’t sure what she wanted at the moment. “Let’s go home and then we can talk. We can get to know each other.” She was leading her brother to her home. She was taking him home. She didn’t want to talk about her dad. He was gone. He had been gone. But here was Rube, her brother. It was enough. Maybe it would end up being too much, more than she could handle. Maybe it would all get so much worse. How could it not get worse? But for now, walking across the grass, to the only place she’d ever called home, it was enough to have someone walking alongside her.

Run for the Hillscomes out May 13, 2025 from Ecco and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

source: people.com