
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
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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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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Sleep Tight
- By: J. H. Markert
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Father Silence once terrorized the rural town of Twisted Tree, disguising himself as a priest to prey on the most vulnerable members of society. When the police finally found his House of Horrors, they uncovered nineteen bodies and one survivor–a boy now locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane. Nearly two decades later, Father Silence is finally put to death, but by the next morning, the detective who made the original arrest is found dead. A new serial killer is taking credit for the murder and calling himself the Outcast.
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I realized I just wasted 11 hours of my life…
- By Amor Chavez on 09-13-24
By: J. H. Markert
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Model Home
- A Novel
- By: Eric Puchner
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Warren Ziller moved his family to California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of Southern California in the 1980s. But his American dream has been rudely interrupted. Despite their affection for one another - the "slow, jokey, unrehearsed vaudeville" they share at home - Warren; his wife, Camille; and their three children have veered into separate lives, as distant as satellites.
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The worst book I've listened to EVER.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-12-10
By: Eric Puchner
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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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String Follow
- A Novel
- By: Simon Jacobs
- Narrated by: Amanda Dolan, James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A mysterious force is seeking inroads: vulnerabilities to exploit, friendships to hijack, untapped rage to harness toward its own ends. Who will serve it best? Claire is abrasive and aimless, embarrassed by her privileged upbringing. Weak-willed David is consumed by a recent breakup and harbors fantasies of violent, cultish orgies.
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Nostalgia horror!
- By Jamie Toepel on 08-16-24
By: Simon Jacobs
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The Queen
- By: Nick Cutter
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake, Zac Aleman, Corey Brill, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On a sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity’s been missing for over a month. Most people in town—even the police—think she’s dead. Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything, know the most intimate details about one another…except for the destructive secret hidden from them both. A secret that will trigger a chain of events ending in tragedy, bloodshed, and death. And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story.
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Yikes. Boring and forgettable.
- By Paintedsheep on 11-15-24
By: Nick Cutter
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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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The Blueprint
- A Novel
- By: Rae Giana Rashad
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman’s occupation, spouse, and residence. Solenne finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who’d been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official. Solenne finds the psychological bond unbearable, so she considers alternatives. With Henriette as her guide, she must decide whether and how to leave behind all she knows.
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Wow
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-25
By: Rae Giana Rashad
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We Came to Welcome You
- A Novel of Suburban Horror
- By: Vincent Tirado
- Narrated by: iiKane
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren’t helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass of wine becoming more of an all-day—and all-bottle—event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful gated community of Maneless Grove. However, the neighbors are a little too friendly in Sol’s opinion.
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Needs a different voice actor
- By Tinyv2424 on 09-11-24
By: Vincent Tirado
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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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An Unkindness of Ghosts
- By: Rivers Solomon
- Narrated by: Cherise Boothe
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations the Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, whom they consider to be less than human.
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Well-balanced space opera
- By William Emmons on 08-06-18
By: Rivers Solomon
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Blood Like Mine
- By: Stuart Neville
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers, Michael Braun
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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On a snowy December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. Still, she refuses help from a man in a pickup truck—Rebecca’s adolescent daughter, Moonflower, is on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered by anyone they meet.
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Well that was a surprise!!!!
- By 6catz on 08-09-24
By: Stuart Neville
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 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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Too odd to be frightening
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A short and sad story written beautifully
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Lackluster twist
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