Sorrowland (ARC Book Review)

Rivers Solomon’s sophomore novel, Sorrowland, is a gorgeously evocative writing style wrapped around a clash of genres—a heartwood of dark fantasy and science fiction that would make Stephen King proud with the added surprise of horror elements standing starkly against a romantic plotline diving momentarily into erotica, and a few other dashes of this and that.

Sorrowland explores motherhood, trauma, the unbreakable connections between people and cultures, and ideas of bodily ownership through the story of Vern, a young woman who escapes from the cult of Cainland she grew up in to give birth to twin boys in the woods and raise them on her own. But as time goes by, Vern realizes that Cainland might not have been as easy to escape from as she realized and that, in truth, it may never have left her.

“Loving, worshipping, and bowing down to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures. To be alive meant to lust after connection, and better to have one with the enemy than with no one at all. A baby’s fingers and mouth grasp on instinct.”

This engaging plot goes in a number of unexpected directions and had the potential to be a genre-bending phenomenon. But instead, it felt stratified. Like oil and water, the different parts of the narrative seemed unwilling to mix together and ended up feeling indecisive for much of the novel. 

In the end, as the story veers into an almost pulp sci-fi type storyline that seemed much too simplistic for the initial set-up, readers will find themselves divided depending on their preferences. Half—those like myself—will be left wishing that the story had gone into even weirder territory and left more unexplained while others will wish the tangibility of the ending would have been reflected all along and that the story would have been more mainstream fiction and consumable for a wider audience. Both groups will no doubt find the ending unfinished, lying open as if waiting for a sequel that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

“She was a girl made of aches and she flung her body at the world in the hopes that something, anything, might soothe the tendernesses.”

Hovering uncertainly in between, the story will be hard-pressed to find its perfect audience. Yet the ambitiousness of it all does not go unnoticed and is impressive in its own right. Likewise, Solomon’s exceptional writing skills—most evident in the first handful of chapters—should not go without recognition and was often hauntingly beautiful in a way that will certainly make me pick up more by the author. 

I rated Sorrowland 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for an early copy in exchange for an honest review!

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