Book Review: Sorrowland, Rivers Solomon
Science Fiction: Sorrowland, Rivers Solomon
No review is going to do this book justice. It’s speculative fiction. It’s black and queer fiction. It’s beautifully written fiction. It’s an angry voice decrying intersectional injustice fiction. No matter how you approach it, you are going to give important aspects incomplete consideration. Rivers Solomon has an incredible voice and every note of this novel hits the right pitch.
Vern is fleeing the Children of Cain, a cult compound in Texas. She is fifteen years old and pregnant. Her husband is the fiery and charismatic leader of the group, a group of African Americans who have rejected the values and religions and ways of white America and retreated to live apart in their own essentially self-sufficient community. Vern was a rebellious and defiant young girl who had tried to flee before. To keep her tied to the compound, the reverend married her and (given the ages of the parties) raped her into pregnancy.
Vern somehow escapes the compound near the time to give birth. While in the woods outside the camp, she hears wolves giving chase. These wolves inspire the name of her firstborn: Howling. Surprisingly, she is not done, and after fleeing a bit further she gives birth to a twin: Feral.
Vern raises Howling and Feral in the woods, teaching them to hunt and fish and gather and avoid humans and other wild creatures. As they grow, Vern herself begins to change. Her body takes on new aspects, components that are barely human or not human at all. In fear of both what she is becoming and what she is leaving behind, she takes her children and flees north, seeking a childhood friend who seemingly escaped the compound and went on to live with other family.
Solomon tackles multiple issues in her writing. The religious cult is by and for blacks. Purportedly it is to empower blacks by separating them from the demeaning and disempowering white culture. But Vern discovers that not everything in the camp is what it seems. Money and powerful interests support the camp, money and powerful interests that are not focused on empowering poor blacks. Even Vern’s own childhood was actually very different than she remembers thanks to repeated lies and conditioning.
Up north, she learns that there are other victims of history as she is taken in by a Native American family. Despite their love and acceptance and assistance, though, Vern continues to be pursued by those from the camp who want something she refuses to return to them: her body.
Whether you are looking for a darn good story, an important voice raised in righteous anger and resentment, a creative piece of speculative fiction, or a work that explores what it means to be a queer person of color in these United States, Rivers Solomon delivers. They passionately and eloquently offer a tale of rejection and acceptance, of transformation and triumph, of embracing the ugliness of history and rejecting the hopelessness of the future. Sorrowland should not be missed and cannot be ignored.
Book Review: Sorrowland, Rivers Solomon