Model Home: A Novel

“With this exhilarating and unforgettable work, Solomon proves to be a formidable writer.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

 

The three Maxwell siblings have kept their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. It wasn’t being the only Black kids in the neighborhood that pushed the children to flee, but rather the strange and inexplicable things that began to happen in the house as soon as they moved in. Was it some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper 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 finally got away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents alone in the house. But when news of their parents’ deaths arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with the family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away.

Rivers Solomon has turned the haunted-house novel on its head. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is a story of secret histories uncovered and of a family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.