Needless to say, Vern is Sorrowland’s Mother Miranda.A befuddled writer walks into a Brooklyn watering hole and is asked to pitch the premise of Sorrowland in a succinct, logline-like manner. The plots mirror each other, creating a chicken or the egg effect, leaving the reader to guess at who came up with the idea first.

If you have played or know the plot of the video game Resident Evil Village, then you are keenly aware of where the story is going. If it’s three things River Solomon does well, it’s sculpting characters that are deeply compelling, building worlds firmly set in science or the-possible, and then creating endings that negate it all. Sorrowland feels more like a commentary on mental illness than a horror or science fiction story. The main character enjoys pain and conflict, whether it is self induced or caused by other people, and she actively searches it out as a form of release. The act of self harm is discussed liberally and often in this book in an ‘appealing’ way that could trigger those who have engaged in self harm to start doing it again. I’m not usually one for trigger warnings but this story definitely warrants it. The Village has Miranda, Sorrowland has Vern It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it. To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future - outside the woods. 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. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.īut even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Vern - seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised - flees for the shelter of the woods.

The echoes of Chilton's haunting and beautiful narration will reverberate long after this powerful audiobook is over.' ( AudioFile magazine )Ī triumphant, genre-bending breakout novel from one of the boldest new voices in contemporary fiction

'Narrator Karen Chilton gives a riveting performance in this genre-defying masterpiece. 2021 Time Magazine Best Books of the YearĢ021 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon