Monica Brashears

Honestly, if a fresh Southern Gothic novel complete with haints sounds like your jam, just read this book. I'm trying to find some words to do this one justice! I was immediately on Magnolia's side as she imagines herself as the smallest details from fairy tales, as if she is thinking of herself as the breadcrumbs in Hansel & Gretel or the bean in Jack & the Beanstalk. There is something endearing about Magnolia imagining herself as the smallest things, especially when she wants her mind to show more drift from her difficult situation. The book begins with the death of Magnolia's grandmother, which leaves 19 year old Magnolia with really no one left to help her out in Tennessee. But then she meets a strange man that would like her to mimic the lost loved ones of people willing to pay for an odd sort of closure. It's probably her ability to imagine herself as the smallest things in fairytales that enable her to channel the missing women convincingly. Side character Eden is a highlight -- helping Magnolia transform her face into the missing women, as Eden herself uses makeup to look like a different celebrity every day. This is clearly not something healthy for Magnolia to be doing -- to feel less small. There is really something that can elevate a book (that also must be difficult to accomplish for a writer) when a reader is 100% on Magnolia's side from page one, even if Magnolia sometimes doesn't make the best choices. I don't want to outright compare this book to Toni Morrison, as nothing really should be, but there IS a Toni Morrison epigraph at the beginning (plus, a few others.) So the Toni Morrison influence is there, but Brashears is no imitator. I do enjoy that even though this book was dark, it did manage to maintain some magic and I guess you could say the same about fairytales. I would set this on the shelf beside 'Nightcrawling' by Leila Mottley -- both books featuring young women trying to survive in tough situations. Plus, there is a Raven Leilani blurb for this book, and I SUPPOSE this book is worthy of sitting beside the lovely 'Luster'. I wish Magnolia, Edie and Kiara could be friends supporting each other. But AH, some books I am just extremely glad I actually picked up, out of the billions of books out there, and this is one of them. I can't wait to see what Brashears writes next. show less

This is one of those fantastic stories that rewards a careful reading. Part katabasis and part modern gothic, it leaves a reader overjoyed with the fertility of its interpretive value. I wouldn’t recommended it for those who prefer a literal story and take events at face value. I borrowed this from the library but immediately went out after and bought myself a copy so I could have it always.

The Short of It:

Raw and brutal.

The Rest of It:

One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, Magnolia Brown encounters a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton. He offers to turn her luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home–where she will pose as clients’ dead loved ones. She accepts. ~ From the publisher

This story will hit you with a closed fist. The author holds nothing back. Magnolia’s struggle to live has her doing things that at show more first won’t shock you, but then as the story plays out, I found her desperation to survive shockingly sad. The people she encounters never have her best interests at heart. No. And deep down she knows it, but her walk to freedom is alarming at times. So much so that I almost put the book down more than once.

This was chosen for my book club so I felt the need to finish it and it left me in a strange place. On the one hand, the writing is peppered with beautiful moments but the story is dark, very dark. Death and decay hang out at every turn and it’s pretty explicit.

There are moments though, that reveal Magnolia’s true heart, like her relationship with a homeless man and the many memories of her grandma that are shared throughout the story. Life in a funeral home is rough and when you choose to play a dead loved one, things can get a little dangerous. Not so much the action of it, but what it does to your psyche. When you are so fully immersed in death, how do you separate life from death?

I will be honest here, House of Cotton was a FINALIST for the 2024 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award and NPR’s BEST BOOK OF 2023, but it’s explicit in detail and might be a lot for someone not used to reading something so raw and ragged.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter. show less

I enjoyed reading this book, but I didn't fully connect to it. The characters are interesting. I was never bored. In fact, it's quite readable. I just never felt any emotion for the characters. It's not the typical sort of book that I read, and the blurb makes it sound a bit more sinister than it is. I spent about 60% of the book waiting for something other than Southern Good Ol' Boy Racism to happen. It never did.