Sorrowland

Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because the author's A Major Talent

A 2021 NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR!

The Publisher Says: Vern—seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised—flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the show more future - outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

I RECEIVED MY DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: ↡↡↡ HEED. THE. CONTENT. WARNINGS. BELOW. ↡↡↡

There are almost no good people in this world, and Vern meets the worst of them. What makes this a deeply satisfying read is that teenaged Vern, in their unbelievable indomitable drive to thrive not just survive, manages to do exactly that. Overcoming all-too-real obstacles? Check. Guiding new lives through a terrible world, explaining how to be better? Check. Vern raising their children is the single brightest take-away I have from this unhappy story.
Loving, worshipping, and bowing down to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures. To be alive meant to lust after connection, and better to have one with the enemy than with no one at all. A baby's fingers and mouth grasp on instinct.

If I were to seek my mental filing system's catalog for closest comparables, I'd have to go with Toni Morrison's deathless [Beloved] admixed with Octavia E. Butler's more trenchant [Kindred], as written for Quentin Tarantino to film. Yes...violence and menace are imbued in every scene. No, it isn't a splatterfest. Yes, every single thing that happens evokes an emotional response. No, there are no "answers" or fancy nostrums to help us deal with the underlying hate, like the lava in a volcano, erupting for as long as it erupts.
Going against tended to end more rightly, more justly, than going with. People were wrong. Rules, most of the time, favored not what was right, but what was convenient or preferable to those in charge.

If you've read 2017's [An Unkindness of Ghosts] or 2019's [Blood is Another Word for Hunger], you're ahead of me in this realization. If you haven't, read this book. You will not regret your introduction to the magical prose that Author Solomon uses being this story. I'm willing to bet you'll get on to their back catalog after finishing the read. If not, if this is just all too much for your sensibilities at the present, read their free online short work that's part of The Verge's "Better Worlds" project: St. Juju.

This writer is a Talent in a world that needs more of them.

CW: sexual assault, CW: violence show less

I really enjoyed this, as weird as it might be to say that about a book that to me feels like a slightly more grounded The Road. Watching Vern's journey through trust and mistrust I think is a fascinating story in and of itself, and as the larger mysteries unfold the story comes together in pretty powerful ways. I do think that because it's so rooted in place and history, the more fantastical/sci-fi aspects came across as a little jarring, but I do think the story at the core was important and is an interesting look at grappling with that history.

This seems like the perfect book to wrap up Black History month.

I know, it took me a while to get to this one. While I have adored Solomon since An Unkindness of Ghosts, faer writing tends to be devastating, and devastated is generally how I start the day. But the second I opened this, I was entranced and could not look away.

There are plenty of reasons to want to look away. This book digs deep into atrocities this country has heaped on Black people throughout its history, the complicity of individuals, institutions, and the state, and the problems of power. Through Cainland, it also chews on the idealized racial justice society to oppressive cult to mass death pipeline. There is also weird mushroom bullshit (affectionate), some show more anti-settler discourse, gender/sex fuckery, and a whole lot of the ways straight cis-men grind anyone other underfoot. (But there are certainly lots of women happy to participate through various betrayals along the way.)

One aspect of the book that I am still not sure how I feel about is Vern's age. The book opens with Vern giving birth to twins alone in the woods, when she is just fifteen. There is a lot of hand-waving time passing during the book in which it feels like Vern is getting much older, but the main final conflict seems to happen when she is still just nineteen. While basically her entire life has forced her to grow up too fast, every time a rare reference to her age popped up, it was shocking, in that she just does not read that young.

I really have way too many thoughts and feelings about this book to sum up here. But I thought this was absolutely incredible. show less

Trigger Warnings: rape, torture, abuse, self-harm, pedophilia, child abuse, death, drowning, childbirth, blood, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, cult, brainwash, racism.

When Vern escapes the strict religious compound where she grew up, she's seven months pregnant and desperate. She flees into the woods where she gives birth to twins, Howling and Feral, and plans to raise them far from the reaches of the outside world.

But Vern can't flee from her past, metamorphosis is leaking into her world. Forced to fight the community that refuses to let her go, she discovers she can handle something that no person should ever be capable of.

To understand what's happening, and to protect her small family, Vern has to face everything, especially what lies show more beyond the outside of the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of both the compound and the violent history in America that helped produce it.

Rivers Solomon is a talented writer and I'm always excited to read their books. But just like with The Deep , it took me a minute to get into the writing style. Vern had an older voice, an old soul even, wise beyond her years... it took me a bit to get into the narrative. I struggled slightly in the beginning, trying to figure out what time this was supposed to be set in, but quickly figured out why that was the case.

Vern is a black albino woman, who is struggling to understand herself, the world around, her upbringing, and others around her. She was a hard character to like; sometimes she wasn't a good mother or a good person. But throughout the novel, you learn more about her and start to understand her pain, both mentally and physically, past and present. You begin to empathize. Solomon writes prose in such a way that you're engulfed in it and, though there may be nothing similar, you as a reader, connect with Vern.

I loved how genderless this book is... it explores gender in a way I haven't read before. The best example would be Vern's children, though others try to put labels on them, Vern says they're children and that's that. There's also a sapphic romance in the novel!

Though the list of Trigger Warnings is a bit long, Sorrowland is a novel that deals with racism, social injustice, and misogyny. Solomon does all this using horror elements as well as magical realism. I know people have it marked as Fantasy, but it's magical realism... I can see that this book won't be for everyone, it deals with a lot and the main character won't be liked by most, but I will still recommend this to anyone who has read Solomon's other works and enjoy them as well as those new to their work. Those who enjoy Octavia E. Butler would also enjoy this. show less

This was a fantastic book. I'm not sure how Rivers Solomon sustained the intensity of Vern's story and Vern's emotional journey so completely throughout the book, but they did it, and did it convincingly. This had an emotional resonance and bone-deep ache in its exploration of the loss and the abuse of Black bodies in US history (and US present), but it was also a page-turning, propulsive narrative. I hope non-genre readers will be adventurous enough to read this book (it doesn't stick with any one genre, but borrows liberally from the tools provided by horror, gothic, fantasy, sci-fi, and realistic fiction). I will certainly be recommending this to everyone this year! (Also, it provided unforgettable characters in Vern, Gogo, Howling, show more and Feral).

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book, which did not influence my review. show less

Vern, a heavily pregnant teen, flees her Black separatist compound. But in the woods around them lurk fiends who hunt and taunt her. As she raises her twins, her own body seems to turn against her, hiding perhaps monstrous secrets of her own. Vern doesn’t know how, much less who, to trust, and she doesn’t know how to ask for the help she needs, though she finds people who extend it to her anyway. This is a worthy sequel to Solomon’s first novel, a story of rage and injustice that doesn’t feel hopeless despite how little faith it has in America (especially its white people).

Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a beautiful, haunting, and intimate story of finding power and hope in yourself and not what anyone else wishes you to be. From the graphic opening and harrowing chase that follows, join illiterate, fifteen-year-old Vernon Fields, who is afflicted with nystagmus… and a strange fungus, on her troubled quest to find the power of her own voice. Here is a message to us all with stops along the way exploring gender, sexuality, and, oh, maybe just a little bit about questioning all you know of your world.

The Blessed Acres of Cain is home to Coloreds Against White Supremacy. CLAWS is a Black nationalist group from the mid-twentieth century who wished to escape from the toxicity of White America in all its show more varied forms. Decades on, what was meant to be a communal haven founded on a deep understanding of the natural world and strong religious beliefs, seems little more than a strange, antiquated cult. Blessed Acres is anything but safe. Vern is finally running away from years of abuse. In the depths of the nighttime woods, shadowed by inexplicable hauntings, she gives birth to twins Howling and Feral. Following closely on her heels, an elusive hunter taunting her with a dead fawn with a pacifier stuck in its muzzle and a dead opossum in pale pink overalls.

For the next three years, the masochistic, relentlessly rebellious Vern manages to survive thanks to the naturalist teachings of Blessed Acres as she tries to keep the hauntings and hunter at bay. On the edge of the woods, a brief experience at a lone biker bar becomes a more routine love affair, but Vern feels the heavy weight of her religious upbringing that her love of women is nothing short of blasphemy. However much she loves the wilderness, she is soon reminded that there are questions about Blessed Acres that need to be answered. When she finally leaves the forest with the twins, she finds the warm embrace of Auntie Bridget and Gogo, two Oglala who do their best to help those at the fringes of society. Gogo’s positive influence and intimate relationship with Vern combined with the persistent advance of the fungus, allow Vern to examine the internal and external cages of belief systems that seek to subdue and destroy her. The mysterious fungus infecting Vern may hold some of the answers on this journey of empowerment, the terrifying hauntings that continue to hound her at every turn, and the secret some wish to protect at any cost that lies at the heart of Blessed Acres.

Sorrowland’s defiant narrative asks us to question the structure of our personal, social, and national lives. We are often afraid to critically examine and speak out for change about the deep wounds upon which America is founded, and the systems that perpetuate and demand conformity to the imaginary construct of social institutions. Through Vern’s personal journey, we are asked to take a closer look at those seemingly insurmountable systems that seek to keep people quiet and obeisant, and find the strength to question, observe, and stand together against injustice in all its forms. At these moments in American history, the messages are more timely than ever.

** Thank you to MCD Books, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest, unbiased review ** show less