Sorrowland

Amazon.com Review An Amazon Best Book of May 2021: Rivers Solomon’s writing talent comes on like a firehose in this genre-bending Gothic tale. When Vern flees Cainland, the religious cult where she was raised, she is pregnant and desperate, but she might also finally be on the path to freedom. She gives birth to twins, raising them deep in the forest, until a confrontation with a being she calls “the fiend”—who has been haunting her for years—drives her to leave the forest and seek answers about her past. You will not meet a more memorable protagonist than Vern; this young Black albino intersex mother lights up the novel. So does Rivers Solomon’s writing. Sorrowland is literature, horror, and fantasy—and the ideas and imagery packed into this book could fill half a dozen other novels. At times, it felt like Solomon was only just holding on to the reins of the story, and as a reader I found it thrilling to discover where that could lead. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review Product Description 'Sorrowlandis a wonderland of fantastical and frightening, magical and real. At the centre of this world and leaping off the page is Vern: unstoppable, unforgettable, and unlike anyone you have ever seen before.' MARLON JAMES, Booker Prize-winning author'A fantastical, fierce reckoning ... Sorrowland is gorgeous, and the writing, the storytelling, are magnificent. This country has a dark history of what it's willing to do to black bodies, and Rivers Solomon lays that truth bare in a most unexpected, absolutely brilliant way.' ROXANE GAY__________________________Vern, a Black woman with albinism, is hunted after escaping a religious compound, then she discovers that her body is changing and that she is developing extra-sensory powers.Alone in the woods, she 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 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 dehumanisation, medical experimentation, and 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.__________________________