Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2021

A New York Times Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2021

The Stonewall Book Award winner of 2022

Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR, The New York Public Library, Publishers Weekly and more!

A triumphant, genre-bending breakout novel from one of the boldest new voices in contemporary fiction.

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.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future--outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

Rivers Solomon's Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren't just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

Rivers Solomon writes about living on the periphery, a place where people feel at ease. Solomon's debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts was a finalist for a Lambda, a Hurston/Wright, an Otherwise (previously Tiptree), and a Locus award, in addition to being on the Stonewall Honor List and earning a Firecracker Award. The Deep, Solomon's second book, was the winner of the 2020 Lambda Award and was shortlisted for a Nebula, Locus, Hugo, Ignyte, Brooklyn Library Literary, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy award. It was adapted on the Hugo-nominated song by Daveed Diggs-fronted hip-hop trio clipping. Solomon's short fiction has been or will appear in Black Warrior Review, the New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Best American Short Tales, Tor.com, Best American Horror and Dark Fantasy, and other publications. Solomon was born on Turtle Island but now lives on an island in an archipelago off the western coast of the Eurasian continent, a survivor of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade.