Model Home by Rivers Solomon
304 pages, Hardcover
Rivers Solomon has entered a new territory with this reader. I have read all four of their books and so far I have liked them all. I suppose that puts Solomon in the category of author I will follow in any genre. I should say that my start with this author was a little rough, as I did not enjoy The Unkindness of Ghosts during the reading experience. A curious thing happened as I broke it down for my review, I realized elements at work. More than any other book, writing the review changed my mind on the book. For one thing, I had to let go of my ideas about the genre the book is written in. My ideas of what a generation starship novel didn’t matter and once I accepted that I allowed myself to enjoy it more.
The novella The Deep was good but didn’t completely hook me, but the body-horror superhero tale Sorrowland rocked my world and probably remains my favorite Solomon novel. That said, Model Home, a true haunted house horror novel is objectively more of a masterwork. Like all of Rivers Solomon's novels they stay with you, you think about them and your perception of the novel grows and changes. As many haunted house novels as there are it is not a minor feat to do something NEW and IMPORTANT let alone create a masterwork. Here we are - Model Home ticks lots of boxes.
This novel feels lived in, not quite autobiographical but it is clear the author mined their personal life for events and vibes in this novel. I have nothing besides gut feeling and honestly, I hope not because this is not based on true life events. Why? Because this novel contains some gut-wrenching drama as well as horror.
Set in Dallas Texas the main characters are a black family who grew up in Oak Creek Estate, a wealthy upper-class gated community. Even though Ezri, Eve, and Emmanuel have left home none of them have an interest in going back. Despite their parents still living there over the years. The siblings become worried when they get strange out-of-character messages from their mother. Ezri comes from England to investigate and find their parents dead in the house.
Most of the novel is told through Ezri, a character who like the author escaped this country for England. I suppose that is the reason why I suspected elements were autobiographical but I tried to resist that.
The set-up for a political haunted house novel is so well done by the neighborhood who reject the black family, and the parents who insist on staying to prove a point. (Every haunted house novel has to have a reason the people don’t just leave). The excellently written and realized characters are the last pieces that complete the puzzle. In the guise of a haunted house novel, Solomon makes statements on child abuse, identity politics and normalized white supremacy.
“Even when you fight with everything you have to escape the house, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, because outside the house, is just as bad as inside the house.”
I like the idea that the haunting is as much the parents and their effect on the kids as it was actual ghosts. If you think about it, the actions of parents are the kinda thing that can haunt a person and there is no supernatural anything that has to be involved. I was lucky enough to have good parents but I have known many people who have been basically haunted their entire lives by the actions of one or both parents. That trauma is the haunt in this haunted house. Impressive metaphor and an excellent way to do something new with the genre horror.
“How cruel that our parents, unexorcisable, go on inside of us. How cruel that we cannot disimbricate their ghosts from our being.”
Model Home has several disturbing moments, including one of the most painfully raw sex scenes I have read in a book. There are moments with characters of humor and joy that help to create the “Care” in Scare. No idea if horror is a genre Solomon intends to keep working in, but this novel is a masterwork.
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