
Model Home
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Gabby Beans
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By:
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Rivers Solomon
About this listen
Long-listed, Audible.com Best of the Year, 2024
Long-listed, CPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best, 2024
Welcome to Rivers Solomon's dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.
As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural” death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?
Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
©2024 Rivers Solomon (P)2024 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[A] startling reimagination of the haunted-house genre . . . In evocative prose, Solomon harnesses and recasts classic horror tropes to tell an original story of race and class, family, trauma, and grief. Each character . . . is finely rendered, with the dynamic among the siblings illustrating the ways loyalties shift and change, in constant renegotiation, and dramatizing the ruptures activated by traumatic events. The novel’s construction is elliptical, with past and present alternating from chapter to chapter [and Solomon’s] twists and turns are carefully drawn, with the tension mounting toward a shocking end . . . With this exhilarating and unforgettable work, Solomon proves to be a formidable writer.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“A profoundly haunting work of true horror from one of the greatest writers working today.”—Sarah Gailey, author of Just Like Home and Magic for Liars
“Intense, original, and wonderfully unpredictable—those adjectives describe Rivers Solomon as much as this novel. Model Home is a story of a haunted house and haunted people; profound family secrets lie at the heart of this book as well as, surprisingly, blessedly meaningful touches of love and hope. Rivers Solomon is an astonishingly talented writer.”—Victor LaValle , author of Lone Women and The Changeling
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Story
Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a historic bungalow on the Chicago River. They’re tethered to a disquieting past, and with nowhere else to go, nothing can part them from their family home. Not the maddening creaks and disembodied voices that rattle the old walls. Not the inexplicable drownings in the area, or the increasing number of bodies that float by Anna’s window. To stave off loneliness, Anna has a podcast, spinning ghostly tales of Chicago’s tragic history. But when Anna captures the attention of an ardent male listener, she awakens to the possibilities of a world outside.
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Boring
- By motorsprint on 09-20-24
By: Cynthia Pelayo
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Pearl
- By: Josh Malerman
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
There’s something strange about Walter Kopple’s farm. At first it seems to be his grandson, who cruelly murders one of Walter’s pigs in an act of seemingly senseless violence. But then people in town begin to whisper that Walter’s grandson heard a voice commanding him to kill.
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Great start, then meh.
- By Doug M on 10-14-21
By: Josh Malerman
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Haunt Sweet Home
- By: Sarah Pinsker
- Narrated by: Jennifer Blom, Jess Nahikian, Matt Godfrey, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself.
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very fun
- By Jylene Livengood on 03-24-25
By: Sarah Pinsker
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So Thirsty
- By: Rachel Harrison
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday-weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity.
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Weak Ending
- By Jennifer on 10-09-24
By: Rachel Harrison
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Incidents Around the House
- A Novel
- By: Josh Malerman
- Narrated by: Delanie Nicole Gill
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?” When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay. Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
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Child’s voice narrates the ENTIRE novel.
- By NorthernNV on 08-06-24
By: Josh Malerman
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Sorrowland
- A Novel
- By: Rivers Solomon
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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This Book Was Written For Me
- By Legend F on 06-23-21
By: Rivers Solomon
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Helpmeet
- By: Naben Ruthnum
- Narrated by: Patricia Santomasso, John Pirhalla
- Length: 1 hr and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It's 1900, and Louise Wilk is taking her dying husband home to Buffalo, where he grew up. Dr. Edward Wilk is wasting away from an aggressive and debilitating malady. But it's becoming clearer that his condition isn't exactly a disease but a phase of existence that seeks to transform and ultimately possess him.
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Excellent book
- By Jewel Haines on 04-26-25
By: Naben Ruthnum
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Green Fuse Burning
- By: Tiffany Morris
- Narrated by: Tiffany Morris
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
After the death of her estranged father, artist Rita struggles with grief and regret. There was so much she wanted to ask him–about his childhood, their family, and the Mi'kmaq language and culture from which Rita feels disconnected. But when Rita's girlfriend Molly forges an artist’s residency application on her behalf, winning Rita a week to paint at an isolated cabin, Rita is both furious and intrigued. The residency is located where her father grew up.
By: Tiffany Morris
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The Deep
- By: Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and others
- Narrated by: Daveed Diggs
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Yetu holds the memories for her people - water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners - who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one - the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities.
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why was this read by a dude?
- By Nathaniel on 12-14-19
By: Rivers Solomon, and others
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Transmuted
- Rewind or Die, Book 30
- By: Eve Harms
- Narrated by: Arden Hughes
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Crushed by gender dysphoria and the pressure of disappointing her fans who paid for a new face, she answers a sketchy ad seeking transgender women for a free, experimental feminization treatment. The grotesquely flawless Dr. Skurm has gruesome methods, but he gets unbelievable results, and Isa is finally feeling comfortable in her skin. She even gains the courage to ask out her crush: an alluring and disfigured alchemy-obsessed artist named Rayna. But Isa’s body won’t stop changing, and she’s going from super model to super mutant.
By: Eve Harms
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Bury Your Gays
- By: Chuck Tingle
- Narrated by: André Santana, Charlie Jane Anders, CJ Leede, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell. But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, "for the algorithm," in the upcoming season finale.
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The hype is real.
- By Dan Bugbee on 10-03-24
By: Chuck Tingle
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Victorian Psycho
- By: Virginia Feito
- Narrated by: Anna Burnett
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze.
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meh
- By Pamela Y. S. on 02-13-25
By: Virginia Feito
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A Cold Night for Alligators
- By: Viggy Parr Hampton
- Narrated by: Benjamin Powell
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Gullywasher's of Georgia has been abandoned a long time but it's far from empty. A determined CDC epidemiologist goes rogue to tackle a mysterious outbreak in Savannah, only to find himself entangled with a pair of urban explorers and a dangerous, tortured soul in an abandoned theme park where dark forces stir.
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Was interesting
- By nicholas blake armstrong on 08-15-24
Solid good, but not great
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"This song is not a love song
This song is just my curse
I know you've been dreaming 'bout me
But I'm telling you first
This is not a fun song
Of that I'm sure
But I don't need your presence
I just need to hurt"
This book is not a fun book. It is a real book, though. It tells things like they are, showing the reality of life, messy and emotional and beautiful. It shows the horror of trauma, both of visceral sudden violence and of emotional and mental pressure over long periods of time. This is a story about insidious racism, casual homophobia, and sexual abuse.
The main character is queer, genderfluid, and plural. It's wonderful representation. The difficulties these things bring are raised, but mostly as a matter of course, and mostly with support from others. There are a few uses of slurs, both by the main character and others, but they fit within the narrative and character, not simply gratuitous or sensational.
The things that happen to the main character, the things they went through, and the things they think about themselves are all hard to experience but ultimately feel more like a representation of a real person and a cathartic release of feelings held deep than just a character written to suffer. I have felt some of these things myself. I know people with many of these characteristics. This is not simply fiction.
The narrative structure, tone, and pacing all remind me of Stephen King, as does the focus on the characters and their interactions. The supernatural is there, but it's more of a foil for the characters to explore themselves. In the end, though, this book feels much more real and visceral than Stephen King's books ever do. Stephen King feels like he is writing about his characters. It doesn't feel like a lived experience. This book feels like an almost raw expression of thought and emotion.
Read this book if you're up for a challenge. When you're not emotionally fragile or experiencing your own triggered trauma. When you can handle seeing inside another person who has been haunted their entire life by a faceless nightmare mother.
This Book is Not a Fun Book
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Enjoyed every moment!
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Wandering around my house in a daze
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I listed to the audio and holy shit the reader left me speechless, a beautiful performance.
This book hit so hard.
Just wow this was so good and showed how some things are human doing gosh ezri you are one of the best protagonists
Beautiful performance
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I loved the writing style of this book. It’s got unreliable narrators, flash backs, and poetic moments. It also pulled hard on my heart strings in almost every chapter.
Please be warned: there are a lot of tough themes and content expressed in this story, so please come into it as an informed reader if you need.
Deep and dark
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They eat every time
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Best of domestic horror
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Painful does not mean fewer stars
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Too odd to be frightening
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