Sorrowland
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
"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.
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Vern, a hunted woman alone in the woods, 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.
To understand her body's metamorphosis, Vern must investigate not just the
secluded religious compound she fled but the violent history of dehumanization,
medical experimentation, and genocide that produced it. In the course of
reclaiming her own darkness, Vern learns that monsters aren't just individuals,
but entire histories, systems, and nations.
Sorrowland is a memorable work of Gothic fiction that wrestles with the tangled
history of racism in America and the marginalisation of society's undesirables. It
is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in
American fiction.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Between its prose—measured but gorgeous—and a story that feels urgent from the first page, Rivers Solomon’s third novel is more than engrossing. It is completely consuming. When we enter Vern’s world, a speculative vision of the modern-day United States, she is fending for herself in the woods, having escaped from a cult. Still just a teenager and aware that she is being hunted, she must fend, too, for her newborn twins. As her body undergoes changes that she cannot understand, gaining astonishing power, she pieces together the truth about the life she has tried to flee. With the most monstrous parts of Vern’s story, Solomon draws a topography of American injustice—of racism, misogyny, homophobia, exploitation and murderous experimentation. Vern is a uniquely brilliant, compelling protagonist, and Sorrowland will stay with you, as it should.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Solomon's outstanding third novel (after The Deep) revisits the themes of memory and responsibility through two new lenses: horror and contemporary thriller. Vern, an albino, intersex, Black child raised in a cult known as the Blessed Acres of Cain, flees to the woods as a seven-months-pregnant 15-year-old, giving birth to twins she names Howling and Feral. The new family is pursued by "the fiend," who appears to the nearly blind Vern as "a white blur." The fiend scatters animal carcasses throughout the woods (often pointedly targeting animal families to send a message to Vern and her children) and sets dangerous fires. For four years Vern raises her twins without other human contact, until a cataclysmic encounter with the fiend, fearsome changes in her own body, and relentless hauntings drive her to seek answers in the world outside the woods. This plot is the most accessible of Solomon's work to date, but they use the deceptively simple story to delve deep into Vern's struggle to forge her own identity without buckling under the weight of history. As in their debut, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Solomon often packs so much into each image that the result can be overwhelming. They display a maturing control of their craft, employing a breathtaking range of reference that will enable any reader, from horror geek to Derridean academic, to engage with this thrilling tale. This is a tour de force.
