Model Home
Welcome to Rivers Solomon's dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things--the strange and the unexplainable--began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned. As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family's past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a "natural" death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural? Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.Earn by promoting books
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Become an affiliate"Rivers Solomon, a master of horror and speculative fiction, twists familiar tropes to consider the traumas of modern life . . . Solomon, pulling the reader from past to present and back again, is a masterful story architect tackling themes of race, class and family trauma, layering the narrative with tension, suspense and the uncertainty borne of a questionable narrator . . . Model Home forces readers to think deeper about mental health, abuse and the concept of family. It's not your typical haunted house story, but those interested in the horrors and traumas of contemporary life will devour this twisty supernatural horror."
--Saraciea J. Fennell, Washington Post
--Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire "Solomon's genre-defying achievement subverts and reclaims the tropes of the gothic haunted house to create something wholly original and unforgettable."
--Booklist, starred review "[A] startling reimagination of the haunted-house genre . . . In evocative prose, Solomon harnesses and recasts classic horror tropes to tell an original story of race and class, family, trauma, and grief. Each character . . . is finely rendered, with the dynamic among the siblings illustrating the ways loyalties shift and change, in constant renegotiation, and dramatizing the ruptures activated by traumatic events. The novel's construction is elliptical, with past and present alternating from chapter to chapter [and Solomon's] 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 Reviews (starred) " A profoundly haunting work of true horror from one of the greatest writers working today."
--Sarah Gailey, author of Just Like Home and Magic for Liars "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."
--Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women and The Changeling