Model Home

'Intense, original, and wonderfully unpredictable, those adjectives describe Rivers Solomon as much as this novel. Model Home is a story of a haunted house and haunted people; profound family secrets lie at the heart of this book as well as, surprisingly, blessedly, meaningful touches of love and hope. Rivers Solomon is an astonishingly talented writer.'

‘A startling reimagination of the haunted-house genre. The twists and turns are carefully drawn, with the tension mounting toward a shocking end … With this exhilarating and unforgettable work, Solomon proves to be a formidable writer.’

'A profoundly haunting work of true horror from one of the greatest writers working today.'

author of Just Like Home and Magic for Liars

'Fueled by unreliable narrator Ezri’s grief, Solomon’s (Sorrowland, 2021) lyrical slow burn is a disquieting and disorienting rumination on heavy themes including racism, mental illness, gender dysphoria, and sexual abuse. The ambiguity of Ezri’s reflections will keep readers turning the pages to find out what really happened to the Maxwell siblings, whose traumatic childhoods continue to haunt them long after they leave home. Solomon’s genre-defying achievement subverts and reclaims the tropes of the gothic haunted house to create something wholly original and unforgettable.'

Two bodies lie in the garden of a sprawling property in Oak Creek Estate, a wealthy gated community in Dallas, Texas. 
 
The bodies belong to the parents of Ezri, Eve and Emmanuel, who have long since abandoned the childhood home in which their parents remained all these years. A home that has haunted and hollowed them throughout their lives, in a neighbourhood where they grew up as the only Black family, hoping to survive a place that wanted to claim them, expel them and ruin them all at once. 
 
In the wake of their parents’ death, Ezri and their siblings are forced to confront the reasons they left, the nightmares that have held them captive and the possibility that realities exist beyond those that have forged them. 
 
Bold and tender, Model Home is powerful meditation on the power of memory, loss and identity.

Rivers Solomon writes about life in the margins, where they're much at home. Their work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. They are the author of An Unkindness of Ghosts, The Deep, and Sorrowland. A refugee of the transatlantic slave trade, Solomon was born on Turtle Island. They currently live in the UK.

'Intense, original, and wonderfully unpredictable . . . Model Home is a story of a haunted house and haunted people; profound family secrets lie at the heart of this book as well as, surprisingly, blessedly, meaningful touches of love and hope. Rivers Solomon is an astonishingly talented writer.' Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women 
 
 
‘A startling reimagination of the haunted-house genre. The twists and turns are carefully drawn, with the tension mounting toward a shocking end . . . With this exhilarating and unforgettable work, Solomon proves to be a formidable writer.’ Kirkus 
 
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Two bodies lie in the garden of a sprawling property in Oak Creek Estate, a wealthy gated community in Dallas, Texas. 
 
The bodies belong to the parents of Ezri, Eve and Emmanuel, who have long since abandoned the childhood home in which their parents remained all these years. A home that has haunted and hollowed them throughout their lives, in a neighbourhood where they grew up as the only Black family, hoping to survive a place that wanted to claim them, expel them and ruin them all at once. 
 
In the wake of their parents’ death, Ezri and their siblings are forced to confront the reasons they left, the nightmares that have held them captive and the possibility that realities exist beyond those that have forged them. 
 
Bold and tender, Model Home is powerful meditation on the power of memory, loss and identity. 
 
Praise for Sorrowland: 
 
“A wonderland of fantastical and frightening, magical and real.” Marlon James 
“A fantastical, fierce reckoning... Sorrowland is gorgeous.” Roxanne Gay 
“Dark, magical and incredibly satisfying.” Independent 
“An exhilarating journey to the outer limits of science fiction.” Guardian 
"Intense, original and wonderfully unpredicatable." Victor LaVelle

Rivers Solomon

"A fantastical, fierce reckoning... Sorrowland is gorgeous." Roxanne Gay 
 
"Dark, magical and incredibly satisfying." Independent 
 
"An exhilarating journey to the outer limits of science fiction." Guardian. 
 
"Epic!" Observer 
 
Vern, a hunted woman alone in the woods, who gives birth to twins and raises them away from the influence of the outside world. But something is wrong - not with them, but with her own body. It's changing, it's itching, it's stronger, it's... not normal. 
 
Sorrowland is a memorable work of Gothic fiction that wrestles with the tangled history of racism in America, by the end Vern learns that monsters aren't just individuals, but entire histories, systems, and nations.

Rivers Solomon

Sorrowland

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