Rivers Solomon

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erin alise 

I want me to be innocent, too. I want it more than anything. But I am not even an I or a me. 

Can the cellar that a kidnapper throws a child into be guilty or innocent? The lake that a killer drowns his women in? I'm not a person but a place where bad things happen.

And what of my father? Where is my ire for him? Okay, but like, what of anyone's father. Goodness, we can't be disappointed by men we never once believed in.

"Maybe our problemn this whole time was looking for one solid, easy answer. One cause. Like we were in a movie. But in real life, bad things happen over and over and over to people, and it's only the mind that connects all of those bad things into a single narrative."

Essence

She'd told me that white supremacy operates under a logic in which everything whiteness does can be rationalized as good, and everything Blackness does can be rationalized as preternaturally evil.

Lindsay

I would’ve forgiven Mama everything had she said it, the only thing I ever longed to hear from her: I am sorry for the abundance of pain.

I hate speaking of anyone, because whatever I might say will draw a picture, and the picture is wrong. There is no way to describe a person that is not a reduction.

But I am full of funny feelings. Every feeling to me is a funny feeling, not to be trusted.

Being raped repeatedly over the course of one’s childhood obliterates any trust a person could ever have in themselves, in their own body as a vehicle of protection. What is intuition? I will never know.

That feeling of a body that’s forgotten itself remembering it is but flesh, and that the worries of consciousness do not supplant the need for light, food, water, heat.

I’d like to tell her that no family is innocent, not really, that behind every family is a story of harm, that the family itself is a capitalist institution whose definitions and frameworks are imbricated with patriarchy, childism, abuse—

History repeats and repeats because history is people, and we can reproduce only what we know, and we get what we know from our elders. The same mechanisms that facilitate language facilitate the passing on of pain.

you cannot separate yourself from the plight of others, cannot extricate yourself from the rope of pain we are all encircled within,

Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. I can’t really live because I don’t let things die. Everything inside of me, it freezes. It’s natural. That’s what’s going on with my brain, these fractured bits of me freezing in moments of pain and death. My brain is kind of a dead thing.

Maybe she isn’t a person. To be a person, you have to do things, and the world has to move from your touch.

My therapist asked once if I thought it was a form of self-harm, but I told xem I didn’t know if there was a meaningful distinction for me between self-harm and self-pleasure. If it’s something that we are seeking out, to get some kind of rush of relief, isn’t that the pursuit of pleasure? And who decides what harm is?

Okay, but like, what of anyone’s father. Goodness, we can’t be disappointed by men we never once believed in.

If something were to happen to you, you said. If something were to happen to you. I wondered, then, if that meant that everything up to that point was stuff not happening to me.

No, it actually doesn’t make sense. That individual abstinence from animal products does everything to ease one’s own sense of moral responsibility but does nothing to challenge the system. It eases guilt, not animal suffering.

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.

It’s stupid to run from pain instead of to it because pain always comes, and if I could just accept that, life would not be a constant fluctuation between numbness and fear.

My lovers are similar. They want me to be innocent.

I want me to be innocent, too. I want it more than anything. But I am not even an I or a me.

Can the cellar that a kidnapper throws a child into be guilty or innocent? The lake that a killer drowns his women in? I’m not a person but a place where bad things happen.

She thinks the ghosts I have inside of me are objective, material phenomena. They’re ancestors, she says, trying to help. Given our childhood home, I can’t blame her for her belief in haints, curses, juju, hoodoo. These things are no more made up than my host of diagnoses— which change with whatever clinician I see. BPD (borderline personality disorder), OSDD (other specified dissociative disorder), NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), C( omplex)- PTSD, and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). All those letters, but they spell only one thing: hole. That word gets to the muscle and bone of it. I am something no one wants to fall down.

Every day, everyone is a hundred different people: who they are when they are alone and feeling fuckable, who they are when they are alone and feeling unfuckable, who they are when they are grief wrecked, when they are joy smacked.

Their words will be derisory and remind me only that I am alone, but they will provide fuel for my self- pity, which is its own comfort.

The answer to all these questions, of course, is that human beings are not very good. I say this not misanthropically but with the realization that we, through apparent dominance over other animals, have crowned ourselves kings, when in reality we are ill equipped to handle the basic demands of life on this scale. We are forest creatures who’ve wandered into the man- made road, eyes frozen and wide.

No one does body horror (or the horror of their own bodies many trans people feel and many abused people feel) like Rivers Solomon. If you have enjoyed their previous work, you will probably enjoy this one, too. Much like the remainder of their oeuvre, the novel interrogates themes of bodily autonomy, racism, sexuality (and sexual abuse). With a somewhat predictable twist, the novel still holds due to the excellent work with the same.

If you go into this thinking it’s going to be some super fast-paced haunted house horror, you will be severely disappointed. There is a horror and haunted house element, but the focus is the characters. You will have an enjoyable time if you start off knowing that.

Ezri’s family returns to their childhood home in Texas when they learn of the deaths of their parents. It is ruled a murder / suicide, but Ezri and their sisters know better. They know the horrors they grew up. They know why they all escaped and never looked back. And now, they have to find a way to push forward with this knowledge that they rarely ever shared with anyone. The haunting described is not only in regard to the physical house, but in the challenges they faced as affluent Black people in a southern, white community. We become very familiar with the members of this family, but especially with Ezri — our nonbinary, neurodivergent main character. Their voice / prose is extremely prominent throughout the story and makes it feel so intimate.

I do not want to give spoilers and think everyone should read this, but please check the trigger warnings. The details of the potentially triggering events are not especially gruesome or descriptive, but they are present and effective, so take that into consideration.

Nik ✨

If you go into this thinking it’s going to be some super fast-paced haunted house horror, you will be severely disappointed. There is a horror and haunted house element, but the focus is the characters. You will have an enjoyable time if you start off knowing that.

Ezri’s family returns to their childhood home in Texas when they learn of the deaths of their parents. It is ruled a murder / suicide, but Ezri and their sisters know better. They know the horrors they grew up. They know why they all escaped and never looked back. And now, they have to find a way to push forward with this knowledge that they rarely ever shared with anyone. The haunting described is not only in regard to the physical house, but in the challenges they faced as affluent Black people in a southern, white community. We become very familiar with the members of this family, but especially with Ezri — our nonbinary, neurodivergent main character. Their voice / prose is extremely prominent throughout the story and makes it feel so intimate.

I do not want to give spoilers and think everyone should read this, but please check the trigger warnings. The details of the potentially triggering events are not especially gruesome or descriptive, but they are present and effective, so take that into consideration.

incredible storytelling that unfolded in a way that was grotesque (complimentary). absolutely loved the use of language, as a reader you feel this sense of grime and disgust that unveils into a slow dawning heartbreak. my only setback was the switch to the daughter's pov. i understood it in a narrative sense but it seemed quite heavy handed of a parallel in a story that really pulls its punches until absolutely necessary. my first rivers solomon work but this one has definitely made me itch to read 

tiff <3

incredible storytelling that unfolded in a way that was grotesque (complimentary). absolutely loved the use of language, as a reader you feel this sense of grime and disgust that unveils into a slow dawning heartbreak. my only setback was the switch to the daughter's pov. i understood it in a narrative sense but it seemed quite heavy handed of a parallel in a story that really pulls its punches until absolutely necessary. my first rivers solomon work but this one has definitely made me itch to read sorrowland.

really wanted to like this but it left me feeling disappointed :/

This book is best when you know very little about what’s happening. I fear I will be haunted by it for a while. Highly recommend.

Elizabeth

So so haunting… I feel unraveled. I know this book is going to stay with me for a while.

alexis :)

broke my heart and healed me at the same time. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while 

Marsh

Oof Rivers. The beautiful writing boosts this rating

Stark Koenig

Thanks to NetGalley, MCD books and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. Unfortunately, I’m really not sure which way I’m leaning on this one. 

For starters, this was not at all what I expected, and it was not at all what I was looking for. While that’s not the fault of the book, it did hinder my enjoyment throughout. I find the blurb to be quite misleading, as it continually questions if things are supernatural, demonic, possessive. That’s not really what this is about. There are hints, or even outright comments, but it’s something all its own. 

Now that the novel is out, and it’s getting into spooky season, it’s worth noting that this is not a haunted house story. At least not the Halloween month-style most readers will be looking for. One of the things I enjoyed the most, which I assume is what they meant by ‘a new kind of haunted-house story’, is that the novel is really pushing the idea that a house can be haunted in way more ways than the paranormal. With that concept it’s really pushing those bounds with its themes. 

After the death of their parents, Ezri is forced home to Texas to meet with their sisters to finalize things. While each and every occupant of the house suffered, Ezri’s journey through childhood was the darkest. Perhaps that’s why they fled all the way to England. They’ve always been different, and that’s also a huge portion of why. The author labeled them as trans, although with their desire to be and broadcast as both at different times, I did wonder if the term gender-fluid was more accurate (but I don’t know). Either way, the author does make a point to showcase their experience and traumas as different, and that stood out much more to me than most of the commentary on race, even though a huge part of the plot is them being the first black family in an all white neighborhood. However the woman in the beginning saying “so articulate”, really led right off with how the book would commentate. And from the author of The Deep, you shouldn’t be surprised there. The twist at the end also hit in a kind of Get Out way that I will not spoil. 

One this that took me 100% out of the story multiple times, is that the blurb mentions upper-middle class, but then the parents actions clash with that, and then there’s also all the kids feeling like their parents were frugal and they didn’t know they had money? Right in the beginning, a neighbor mentioned wanting the house but picking a different one, the mother insinuates that it was because the woman could not afford their house. The house is commented on as being large, and inside an entirely gated community. The mother’s tastes for furniture are expensive, even imported foreign pieces. They comment on the fact that the father HAD to have a $100,000 tv. In one pivotal scene, that showcases the mother in a particularly good mood, she wants to take them to a dinner to celebrate good news. It is remarked upon that they are not dressed for that kind of restaurant. So, instead of going to change, the mother buys every single on of them a brand new outfit. Head to toe to be able to go to the fancier dinner spot. Then one sibling asks if they can ice skate after dinner at the mall too and the mother says of course. Then in the present day portion of the novel, the family is astonished to hear that they were set to receive over a million dollars prior to liquidating anything else. I’m sorry, and maybe it’s just my lower middle class upbringing catching all the surprise here, but that sounds like an incredibly wealthy family, not one breaking into the upper middle class? 

As one of four siblings, there were also some very odd things the siblings did together that stood out to me, but maybe that’s just my family dynamic? Like cuddling together in bed as adults, comments on wanting to lick tears away, as well as some questionably off massaging. Maybe this was another layer to show reactions to the trauma, but it took me out of the story a bit too much. 

But at one point towards the end, someone’s reading The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and I felt that the novel’s name drop was a really good choice as this is kind of an amalgamation of that book with the idea of a haunted house. All in all, some things in this that I really liked, and others that detracted from them. 

C. J. Daley 

Thanks to NetGalley, MCD books and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. Unfortunately, I’m really not sure which way I’m leaning on this one. 

For starters, this was not at all what I expected, and it was not at all what I was looking for. While that’s not the fault of the book, it did hinder my enjoyment throughout. I find the blurb to be quite misleading, as it continually questions if things are supernatural, demonic, possessive. That’s not really what this is about. There are hints, or even outright comments, but it’s something all its own. 

Now that the novel is out, and it’s getting into spooky season, it’s worth noting that this is not a haunted house story. At least not the Halloween month-style most readers will be looking for. One of the things I enjoyed the most, which I assume is what they meant by ‘a new kind of haunted-house story’, is that the novel is really pushing the idea that a house can be haunted in way more ways than the paranormal. With that concept it’s really pushing those bounds with its themes. 

After the death of their parents, Ezri is forced home to Texas to meet with their sisters to finalize things. While each and every occupant of the house suffered, Ezri’s journey through childhood was the darkest. Perhaps that’s why they fled all the way to England. They’ve always been different, and that’s also a huge portion of why. The author labeled them as trans, although with their desire to be and broadcast as both at different times, I did wonder if the term gender-fluid was more accurate (but I don’t know). Either way, the author does make a point to showcase their experience and traumas as different, and that stood out much more to me than most of the commentary on race, even though a huge part of the plot is them being the first black family in an all white neighborhood. However the woman in the beginning saying “so articulate”, really led right off with how the book would commentate. And from the author of The Deep, you shouldn’t be surprised there. The twist at the end also hit in a kind of Get Out way that I will not spoil. 

One this that took me 100% out of the story multiple times, is that the blurb mentions upper-middle class, but then the parents actions clash with that, and then there’s also all the kids feeling like their parents were frugal and they didn’t know they had money? Right in the beginning, a neighbor mentioned wanting the house but picking a different one, the mother insinuates that it was because the woman could not afford their house. The house is commented on as being large, and inside an entirely gated community. The mother’s tastes for furniture are expensive, even imported foreign pieces. They comment on the fact that the father HAD to have a $100,000 tv. In one pivotal scene, that showcases the mother in a particularly good mood, she wants to take them to a dinner to celebrate good news. It is remarked upon that they are not dressed for that kind of restaurant. So, instead of going to change, the mother buys every single on of them a brand new outfit. Head to toe to be able to go to the fancier dinner spot. Then one sibling asks if they can ice skate after dinner at the mall too and the mother says of course. Then in the present day portion of the novel, the family is astonished to hear that they were set to receive over a million dollars prior to liquidating anything else. I’m sorry, and maybe it’s just my lower middle class upbringing catching all the surprise here, but that sounds like an incredibly wealthy family, not one breaking into the upper middle class? 

As one of four siblings, there were also some very odd things the siblings did together that stood out to me, but maybe that’s just my family dynamic? Like cuddling together in bed as adults, comments on wanting to lick tears away, as well as some questionably off massaging. Maybe this was another layer to show reactions to the trauma, but it took me out of the story a bit too much. 

But at one point towards the end, someone’s reading The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and I felt that the novel’s name drop was a really good choice as this is kind of an amalgamation of that book with the idea of a haunted house. All in all, some things in this that I really liked, and others that detracted from them. 

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