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Summary
Summary
FINALIST for the 2024 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * NPR BEST BOOK OF 2023 * An enchanting Black Southern gothic debut, perfect for readers of Mexican Gothic ... "Fresh, haunting...In her roller-coaster ride of a gothic debut novel, Monica Brashears upends expectations at every turn." -- The New York Times
"Every page, every scene, every sentence of Monica Brashears's debut novel House of Cotton dazzles and surprises. An intense, enthralling, and deeply satisfying read!" --Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
"A new, dazzling, and essential American voice." --George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo
One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, Magnolia Brown encounters a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton. He offers to turn her luck around with a lucrative "modeling" job at his family's funeral home--where she will pose as clients' dead loved ones. She accepts. Despite earning more than she's ever made, Magnolia finds that her problems are fattening along with her wallet. And when Cotton's requests become increasingly strange, Magnolia discovers there's a lot more at stake than just her rent.
This roller-coaster ride of a novel upends expectations at every turn. A bold new talent in the gothic tradition but with a style all her own, "Brashears offers a fresh new perspective on Appalachia and the American South, and Magnolia's rich voice will echo with readers long after the pages are closed" ( Shelf Awareness ).
Author Notes
Monica Brashears is an Affrilachian writer from Tennessee. She is a graduate of Syracuse University's MFA program. Her work has appeared in Nashville Review, Split Lip Magazine, Appalachian Review, The Masters Review, and more. House of Cotton is her debut novel.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Brashears's haunting and macabre debut, a young Black woman navigates her own grief while shouldering the burdens of others. Magnolia Brown, 19, is living life hand-to-mouth in Knoxville, Tenn., when a representative for Cotton and Eden Productions, a shady side project of a local funeral parlor, offers her an unorthodox modeling job: she'll be made up to impersonate deceased loved ones so that bereaved family and friends can say their farewells over Skype. Meanwhile, Magnolia copes with the recent death of her beloved grandmother, Mama Brown, who raised her after her father was killed on a construction site and her mother got in trouble with the law. Now, Mama Brown's ghost appears to Magnolia, claiming she's haunted by a boogeyman-like Bible salesman who scared her as a child. Magnolia is a wonderfully complex character, sympathetic to the bereaved but not sentimental ("There ain't no Bloody Marys or Candymans," she tells Mama Brown. "Only men who too happy to find a woman alone"), and fiercely independent as she gratifies her sexual desires via Tinder hookups. Brashears skillfully portrays the ease with which Magnolia pivots from her interventions in the spirit world to her interactions with Cotton and Eden's paying customers. This is a fine testament to resilience. Agent: PJ Mark and Hafizah Geter, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)
Kirkus Review
A debut novel about generational trauma, grief, and the enduring violence of White supremacy. Magnolia Brown is 19 years old. She hasn't seen her mother since she was 15. Her father's been dead a long time. When her grandmother Mama Brown dies, Magnolia is essentially alone. The only regular figures in her life are Sugar Foot--her landlord, who prefers sex to rent money--and the man who digs through the trash cans at the gas station where she works. Her luck seems to change when a stranger with "milk skin" and freshly manicured nails tells her that she looks like Josephine Baker and offers her a modeling job. A mix of curiosity and desperation leads her to a "plantation-style" house that is half funeral parlor, half family home. Cotton--the man who told her she looks like Josephine Baker even though she doesn't--lives and works there with his Aunt Eden. And this is where Magnolia lives once she accepts Cotton's offer to impersonate the dead for people who are willing to pay for the chance to connect. At first, Magnolia's job involves Skyping for clients. Eventually, she will lie still in a coffin for mourners who never had a chance to bury their loved one and masquerade as a lost--certainly dead--woman at a party for her family and friends. While Magnolia is posing as a series of dead women, Mama Brown haunts her and begs Magnolia to see the baby she's aborted so that both Mama Brown and the baby can rest. And, throughout the narrative, we see the little fairy tales Magnolia tells herself to escape from her real life. This is a messy text with a weird flow, and much of the detail that Brashears provides makes it more difficult--rather than easier--to suspend disbelief unless we understand at the very beginning that this is closer to horror than realist fiction. Perhaps the best way to read this is as a gothic novel in which a surfeit of symbolism offers up a superabundance of meaning. A lyrical fever dream of a novel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
A young woman in Tennessee receives an odd yet intriguing business proposal in this startling, vivid, and impressive Southern Gothic debut novel. Magnolia has just lost her beloved grandmother, Mama Brown, the woman who raised her. Estranged from her drug-addicted mother, quickly running out of money, and trying to cope with loneliness, Magnolia engages in risky behavior. So when an eccentric man named Cotton approaches her with a morbid job opportunity, to act as the doppelganger of missing and deceased people in order to help their loved ones achieve closure, she accepts. Magnolia soon moves into Cotton's home, alongside his alcoholic aunt, Eden, and finds herself entangled in increasingly bizarre situations, all while being visited by the ghost of Mama Brown. Brashears has written a lush, pictorial, and often steamy novel with an indelible heroine. Coupling classic gothic elements with a realistic portrayal of the issues facing a young, poor, Black woman with few options, the novel's many strengths culminate in a powerful and original story that will appeal to a variety of readers across fiction genres.
