Bad Foundations

2026 Fiction Shortlist for Indiana Authors Award Bad Foundations is a comedic absurdist novel about a home foundation inspector whose own home life is falling apart. Cook does not have an ordinary job. He spends his days inspecting people’s crawl spaces, cataloging their filth and photographing the decay. At his other job, as a father, he has to learn how to bond with his teenage daughter, but that’s hard to do when covered in spider webs. High on legal weed and searching for answers to life’s mysteries, Cook works alongside similar colorful characters trying to make money and save for the future. That is until a bad sales month spirals out into a quantum stay at a surreal Ohio hotel. New friendships are made, old curses are dealt with, and the local police force is put to the test. Told in a stylized working-class voice, Brian Allen Carr is a true raconteur of the American Midwest.