Model Home - by Rivers Solomon (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Named a Best Horror Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review
Named a Best Book of the Year by Reactor and the Chicago Public Library

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 gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. Right away, bad things, scary things--strange, unexplainable, violent--began to happen in their house.

As adults, the siblings all escaped the horrors of home, leaving their parents alone back in Texas. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to the house with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family's past and present. Their parents did not die a "natural" death . . . but was it supernatural?

Review Quotes

"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, The Washington Post

"Solomon reimagines the haunted-house genre in this poignant exploration of the ghosts that "unexorcisable, go on inside of us" namely, our parents and our childhoods . . . In chapters alternating between past and present, Solomon evokes the real-life horrors of racism, abuse, and generational trauma, deftly exploring how a human being can become a quasi-haunted house. Coming on the heels of Sorrowland and The Unkindness of Ghosts, Model Home proves Solomon's tremendous talent for reinventing genre stories."
--Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire

"After their parents--onetime paragons of "Black Excellence"--meet a grisly death in the affluent, white gated community in Texas where their family once lived, Ezri is summoned back to their childhood home, a place they have long regarded as haunted. As Ezri and their sisters parse supernatural horrors from earthbound ones, Solomon succeeds in evoking an atmosphere in which there is more than one way to feel haunted."
--The New Yorker

"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

About the Author