A Most Anticipated Book of 2023: Bustle, PopSugar, Gizmodo, Book Riot, Debutiful, CrimeReads, and more!
"This is the story of someone trying to get free in a world where the paths toward freedom are winding, dark – and filled with tricksters and wolves. And Magnolia is a complex heroine, drawn to dark shadows even as she relentlessly seeks out the light." —NPR (Best Books of 2023)
"Lush and gorgeous — and evidence of a new and decisive talent in Monica Brashears... Brashears employs language like a knife, cutting and shaping with remarkable dexterity, and the result is a wonderwork of a first book. This is a novel that sweats and broods, a story where something fretful is always boiling just under the surface." —Nashville Scene
"Magnetic, singular and completely unforgettable." —New York Times
"House of Cotton is dazzling, full of surprises, and told with a voice that's unpredictable and, more importantly, that lingers. Fans of brave fiction would be remiss to skip this one." —NPR
"Startling, vivid, and impressive... 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." —Booklist
"[A] haunting and macabre debut... Magnolia is a wonderfully complex character." —Publishers Weekly
"A lyrical fever dream of a novel." —Kirkus
"Mythic, agile, and alluring all at once." —Bustle
"Delightfully morbid." —PopSugar
"[A] lush and lyrical debut." —Shondaland
"A haunting and sly Southern Gothic with plenty of things to say about race, gender, and appropriation." —CrimeReads
"A novel for anyone who loved Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward." —Debutiful
“Brashears takes Magnolia's story in an array of beautifully poetic and surprisingly artful directions and—by the time it's over—we see that she has something wholly unique to say about race in America. Magnolia's distinctive voice will stay with you long after her story on the page is over.” —Isaac Fitzgerald
“[A] lush and lyrical debut." —Shondaland
"Lush and gorgeous — and evidence of a new and decisive talent in Monica Brashears... Brashears employs language like a knife, cutting and shaping with remarkable dexterity, and the result is a wonderwork of a first book. This is a novel that sweats and broods, a story where something fretful is always boiling just under the surface." —Nashville Scene
"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." —Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness
“A beautiful book about the strange contours of grief.” —Raven Leilani, author of Luster, winner of the NBCC John Leonard Prize
"Monica Brashears is a stunning new talent. Her debut, House of Cotton, is an incredible work of harsh beauty and a novel you won't forget." —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black
"Monica Brashears is an immense talent, and her enchanting, strikingly original prose will astonish you. Magnolia is such a vivid, tender character: whip smart but deeply innocent, traumatized but also joyful and funny. Magnolia’s complex voice is nothing short of miraculous. House of Cotton is a powerful, seductive, and subversive novel." —Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document, winner of the Rosenthal Foundation Award
"Mystical, carnal, and written in fire. House of Cotton ushers Monica Brashears straight onto American lit’s mainstage, which she should grace for a long time.” —Jonathan Dee, author of The Privileges, winner of the Prix Fitzgerald
02/13/2023
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.)
Narrator Jeanette Illidge's impressive vocal versatility perfectly suits this audiobook. Magnolia's grandmother dies, leaving her alone at 19 with a predatory landlord and a job that pays poorly. When a white man offers her a strange but lucrative modeling job, Magnolia accepts and moves into his plantation-style house and funeral parlor. There, as Magnolia impersonates the dead, Illidge's numerous portrayals are realistically delivered. She reproduces the dramatic touches in the story with excellent results. Her portrayal of the ghost of Magnolia's grandmother is gravelly and coarse, and she immerses listeners in Magnolia's horror as it gradually falls apart in front of her. Emotionally connecting to characters who mask their true feelings, Illidge's performance should not be missed. A.K.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Narrator Jeanette Illidge's impressive vocal versatility perfectly suits this audiobook. Magnolia's grandmother dies, leaving her alone at 19 with a predatory landlord and a job that pays poorly. When a white man offers her a strange but lucrative modeling job, Magnolia accepts and moves into his plantation-style house and funeral parlor. There, as Magnolia impersonates the dead, Illidge's numerous portrayals are realistically delivered. She reproduces the dramatic touches in the story with excellent results. Her portrayal of the ghost of Magnolia's grandmother is gravelly and coarse, and she immerses listeners in Magnolia's horror as it gradually falls apart in front of her. Emotionally connecting to characters who mask their true feelings, Illidge's performance should not be missed. A.K.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
2023-02-08
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.
