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The Walls Are Closing In On Us
Not yet published
Expected 3 Mar 26Circus performers. Mountain lions. A fight to the death. A half deer/half man. Love and death. A cabin in the woods. A fictional retelling of a mysterious ancestor. The Walls Are Closing In On Us is a Southern odyssey that follows George, a dying Choctaw and white man, reckoning with the ghosts of his past as he bleeds out beside a cold North Carolina river, hundreds of miles from home.
Starting with his childhood in Mississippi, The Walls Are Closing In On Us travels across the southeast – by car, foot, and train – along with George on his search for love, anonymity and a quiet life. Only by reexamining a lifetime of flight, grief and the haunting consequences of a teenage act of survival, can George be allowed some version the solitude he's been searching for.
Based ever so slightly on a true story, this Southern odyssey explores what it means to be anyone at all, and how even the simple act of reading someone’s name is enough to bring them back to life – no matter if they wish to remain forgotten.
Advanced Praise:
“Mournful, epic, revelatory: The Walls Are Closing in On Us tells the life of one man scaled against a world and time more richly drawn than any I've read in years. Brown writes with uncommon grace, weaving a tapestry of memory and regret so real you can feel it in your bones. This has the wonder and sorrow of Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and the raw power of classic Southern fiction. A sweeping evocation of a lost time and a forgotten life.”
-Kent Wascom, author of the Washington Post’s and NPR’s best book of the year The Blood of Heaven
"With traces of Paul Harding's Tinkers and Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, The Walls are Closing In On Us is a moving novel about racial tensions, segregation, and coming of age in a rapidly changing America. This is a book that examines not only the soul of a man but—perhaps—the soul of a nation."
- Austin Ross, author of Gloria Patri
Starting with his childhood in Mississippi, The Walls Are Closing In On Us travels across the southeast – by car, foot, and train – along with George on his search for love, anonymity and a quiet life. Only by reexamining a lifetime of flight, grief and the haunting consequences of a teenage act of survival, can George be allowed some version the solitude he's been searching for.
Based ever so slightly on a true story, this Southern odyssey explores what it means to be anyone at all, and how even the simple act of reading someone’s name is enough to bring them back to life – no matter if they wish to remain forgotten.
Advanced Praise:
“Mournful, epic, revelatory: The Walls Are Closing in On Us tells the life of one man scaled against a world and time more richly drawn than any I've read in years. Brown writes with uncommon grace, weaving a tapestry of memory and regret so real you can feel it in your bones. This has the wonder and sorrow of Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and the raw power of classic Southern fiction. A sweeping evocation of a lost time and a forgotten life.”
-Kent Wascom, author of the Washington Post’s and NPR’s best book of the year The Blood of Heaven
"With traces of Paul Harding's Tinkers and Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, The Walls are Closing In On Us is a moving novel about racial tensions, segregation, and coming of age in a rapidly changing America. This is a book that examines not only the soul of a man but—perhaps—the soul of a nation."
- Austin Ross, author of Gloria Patri
310 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 3, 2026
28 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Trent Brown
3 books8 followersJoshua Trent Brown is from a little North Carolina town you’ve never heard of. "The Walls Are Closing In On Us" is his first novel. He hopes you enjoy it.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 11, 2026
It’s so hard to believe that this is a debut novel. It strikes such a balance of approachable writing while still being deeply layered. Reading it felt like listening to a friend tell their life story — honest, reflective, raw.
The pacing is intentional. The foundation is so carefully laid to paint a full picture of George’s inner workings. Moving between past and present helped build a steady suspense to the point that I couldn’t put this down for the last 40%. The whole time I was so eager to find out what would happen to George in the present while also understanding the need for us to see what brought him to this point.
The thread of compassion remained even when contrasted to the darker narratives at play throughout. This has a lot of emotional weight but is so well done and made me feel all the feels. You will be well rewarded when you pick up this book!
The pacing is intentional. The foundation is so carefully laid to paint a full picture of George’s inner workings. Moving between past and present helped build a steady suspense to the point that I couldn’t put this down for the last 40%. The whole time I was so eager to find out what would happen to George in the present while also understanding the need for us to see what brought him to this point.
The thread of compassion remained even when contrasted to the darker narratives at play throughout. This has a lot of emotional weight but is so well done and made me feel all the feels. You will be well rewarded when you pick up this book!
February 3, 2026
The Walls Are Closing In is a quiet, emotionally weighty novel that follows one man’s life across hardship, displacement, and the search for belonging. Told through a reflective, memory-driven lens, the story traces George, a half-Choctaw boy growing up in the rural South whose life is shaped less by his own choices than by the forces around him — poverty, racism, violence, and chance encounters.
What stands out most is the author’s restraint. The book does not lecture about injustice or label events for the reader. Instead, it presents lived moments plainly and trusts the reader to wrestle with their meaning. Racism, religious condemnation, and social exclusion are revealed through character actions and consequences rather than commentary, giving the novel moral gravity without feeling didactic.
The prose is fluid and accessible, yet the subject matter is heavy. Suffering is normalized in George’s world; tragedy arrives, he absorbs it, and he moves on. But the novel quietly asks whether moving on is the same as healing. Over time, it becomes clear that trauma does not disappear simply because it is buried — it accumulates.
George is not a traditional proactive protagonist. He reacts, adapts, and survives. Others often choose for him, and he obliges. At first this reads as passivity, but by the end it feels more like a portrait of someone shaped by constrained options and repeated threat. His strategy is endurance, and the novel gently suggests endurance has limits.
Spiritual and symbolic elements — ghosts, visions, and recurring images like the Ferris wheel — add a contemplative layer. The closing pages lean toward spiritual release, evoking a place without pain or walls and suggesting peace after a lifetime of pressure and grief.
This is not a plot-driven novel; it is a character study built on accumulation and echo. Readers who appreciate quiet literary fiction that trusts them to think and feel alongside the story will find much to admire here.
Note: This novel includes heavy themes such as violence, grief, and suicide.
What stands out most is the author’s restraint. The book does not lecture about injustice or label events for the reader. Instead, it presents lived moments plainly and trusts the reader to wrestle with their meaning. Racism, religious condemnation, and social exclusion are revealed through character actions and consequences rather than commentary, giving the novel moral gravity without feeling didactic.
The prose is fluid and accessible, yet the subject matter is heavy. Suffering is normalized in George’s world; tragedy arrives, he absorbs it, and he moves on. But the novel quietly asks whether moving on is the same as healing. Over time, it becomes clear that trauma does not disappear simply because it is buried — it accumulates.
George is not a traditional proactive protagonist. He reacts, adapts, and survives. Others often choose for him, and he obliges. At first this reads as passivity, but by the end it feels more like a portrait of someone shaped by constrained options and repeated threat. His strategy is endurance, and the novel gently suggests endurance has limits.
Spiritual and symbolic elements — ghosts, visions, and recurring images like the Ferris wheel — add a contemplative layer. The closing pages lean toward spiritual release, evoking a place without pain or walls and suggesting peace after a lifetime of pressure and grief.
This is not a plot-driven novel; it is a character study built on accumulation and echo. Readers who appreciate quiet literary fiction that trusts them to think and feel alongside the story will find much to admire here.
Note: This novel includes heavy themes such as violence, grief, and suicide.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Simply put, this is a story about a half-Choctaw man who just wanted to find a home and a place to belong amidst a life encumbered by discrimination and many many tragedies.
This is one of those stories that I call "unfortunately realistic." So many terrible things take place in George's life to the point where you'll probably be thinking that surely nobody is this unlucky. However the reality is that growing up non-white in America—especially in the 1930s—meant that you were pretty much guaranteed to have a life filled with injustices. And while George definitely made some poor decisions at certain points that led to him continuing on what was most likely the more difficult path, the story still feels very believable and his choices make sense for his character.
I have to say that the title for this novel fits the story perfectly as well. Although "the walls are closing in on us" is a phrase used a couple of times in the story itself, the experience of actually reading the novel really takes things a step further. There were multiple points in the novel where I myself started to feel anxious as if the walls were closing in on me as well.
This is definitely one of those debut novels that feels more refined than one would probably expect! It's a compelling story that's able to bring up real emotions in the reader. I'd absolutely recommend this one to readers who enjoy character driven novels and don't mind reading a story that's more tragic than it is happy.
(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Malarkey Books, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)
This is one of those stories that I call "unfortunately realistic." So many terrible things take place in George's life to the point where you'll probably be thinking that surely nobody is this unlucky. However the reality is that growing up non-white in America—especially in the 1930s—meant that you were pretty much guaranteed to have a life filled with injustices. And while George definitely made some poor decisions at certain points that led to him continuing on what was most likely the more difficult path, the story still feels very believable and his choices make sense for his character.
I have to say that the title for this novel fits the story perfectly as well. Although "the walls are closing in on us" is a phrase used a couple of times in the story itself, the experience of actually reading the novel really takes things a step further. There were multiple points in the novel where I myself started to feel anxious as if the walls were closing in on me as well.
This is definitely one of those debut novels that feels more refined than one would probably expect! It's a compelling story that's able to bring up real emotions in the reader. I'd absolutely recommend this one to readers who enjoy character driven novels and don't mind reading a story that's more tragic than it is happy.
(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Malarkey Books, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)
Review of advance copy received from Author
Another great novel coming out of Malarkey Books. This one is absolutely soaked in grief as we meet George, a dying mixed‑race Choctaw man lying in the woods near a river, his body broken and beaten, waiting for the end. As he drifts in and out of consciousness, he’s visited by the ghosts of his deepest regrets and the people who shaped him, for better or worse, as he moved through the world.
Like most Southern gothic stories, The Walls Are Closing In On Us simmers with quiet rage. It digs into segregation, racial tension, generational trauma, and the relentless, bone‑deep anxiety of trying to outrun a past that refuses to stay buried. Brown threads these themes through a landscape that feels both mythic and painfully real, blending historical fiction with a touch of magical realism that never feels ornamental — it feels earned, inevitable, haunting.
There’s a rawness to the writing that feels similar to Denis Johnson’s bruised lyricism and Taylor Brown’s sense of place — that same mix of grit, lyricism, and spiritual exhaustion. Yet Joshua Trent Brown is doing his own thing here, too, with this story about a man facing death while reckoning with the versions of himself he left scattered across the years, and the country that shaped him in ways he never asked for.
It’s heavy but it’s also strangely tender — a novel about endings that still manages to honor the small, stubborn ways people keep going.
If you're not reading Malarkey, what are you even reading?!
Like most Southern gothic stories, The Walls Are Closing In On Us simmers with quiet rage. It digs into segregation, racial tension, generational trauma, and the relentless, bone‑deep anxiety of trying to outrun a past that refuses to stay buried. Brown threads these themes through a landscape that feels both mythic and painfully real, blending historical fiction with a touch of magical realism that never feels ornamental — it feels earned, inevitable, haunting.
There’s a rawness to the writing that feels similar to Denis Johnson’s bruised lyricism and Taylor Brown’s sense of place — that same mix of grit, lyricism, and spiritual exhaustion. Yet Joshua Trent Brown is doing his own thing here, too, with this story about a man facing death while reckoning with the versions of himself he left scattered across the years, and the country that shaped him in ways he never asked for.
It’s heavy but it’s also strangely tender — a novel about endings that still manages to honor the small, stubborn ways people keep going.
If you're not reading Malarkey, what are you even reading?!
Review of advance copy received from Author
The Walls Are Closing In On Us is an impressive debut that follows George, a now beloved protagonist, from his childhood in Mississippi across the Southeast as he searches for love, friendship, anonymity and a quiet existence.
The novel’s strength lies in revisiting George’s past, slowly revealing how deeply it shapes his present. The ghostly element is especially compelling — less about fear and more about how grief lingers and refuses to let go.
After just a few chapters, I was immediately intrigued by the familiarity and depth of the characters. Without giving too much away; George’s relationship with his mother is tender and layered, while Chito and Koi bring warmth and grounding to his world. Charlotte’s story is heartbreaking, adding emotional weight that lingers long after the final page.
For a debut, it’s a moving and assured exploration of love, loss and the cost of running from the past. Wow.
The novel’s strength lies in revisiting George’s past, slowly revealing how deeply it shapes his present. The ghostly element is especially compelling — less about fear and more about how grief lingers and refuses to let go.
After just a few chapters, I was immediately intrigued by the familiarity and depth of the characters. Without giving too much away; George’s relationship with his mother is tender and layered, while Chito and Koi bring warmth and grounding to his world. Charlotte’s story is heartbreaking, adding emotional weight that lingers long after the final page.
For a debut, it’s a moving and assured exploration of love, loss and the cost of running from the past. Wow.
Review of advance copy received from Author
This book is a great read. Once I started, I didn't want to put it down. Every page takes you into a new adventure for the main character and I loved it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews