James Nicoll Reviews

Rivers Solomon’s 2024 Model Home is an upcoming (barely — it’s out on October 1) haunted house novel.

Sisters Ezri, Emmanuelle, and Eve Maxwell fled Oak Creek Estates as soon as they could, each finding their own path: Ezri raising their child alone despite considerable challenges, Eve striving to be a flawless paragon of womanhood, and Emmanuelle operating as a social media maven.

Their parents Eudora Washington and Edward Maxwell remained where they were. Ms. Maxwell was too stubborn to leave and Mr. Maxwell too loyal to his wife.

The news calls Eudora Washington and Edward Maxwell’s deaths murder-suicide. Perhaps the true killer is the house at 677 Acacia Drive.

Oak Creek Estates offered the Brooklynite Maxwell family something novel: a lavish home at reasonable prices. In New York, the family could only afford a two-bedroom, one-bathroom fifth-floor walkup. In Texas, the same money covered a six-bedroom, four-bathroom house with back and front yards.

Oak Creek also provided the Maxwells with that delight, a Home Owners Association. The HOA, under the keen guidance of Laurie Mackleson, provides residents with a plethora of rules, each sensible regulation crafted to preserve Oak Creek’s Edenic status.

A cynic might notice that many of the regulations serve to funnel money into the pockets of HOA-connected residents. The Maxwells could well wonder if the frequency with which the rules seem to pertain to them specifically is a reflection of racism, as the rules target the only African American family on the estate. Or perhaps the rules reflect the instant mutual dislike between Eudora and Laurie.

Eudora’s response to any form of opposition is stubborn resistance. Decades of petty harassment could not drive her or her husband from 677 Acacia Drive. In Eudora’s hands, regulations were a weapon to be turned back on their crafter. But perhaps in the end the Maxwells cracked. That’s certainly what the authorities would prefer to think.

Or perhaps the culprit is something darker. As Ezri knows, 677 Acacia Drive has its own phantom, the woman without a face, the mysterious figure who appeared night after night. The specter that only Ezri believed in.

~oOo~

This is one of those novels that should get content warnings but the content warnings would give away the plot.

Are there any novels in which Home Owners Associations are the good guys? I can’t think of any. Yet HOAs flourish. I wonder why?

To be fair to the other Maxwells, even Ezri sometimes doubts whether there is actually a faceless woman or if the visions are only a delusion. But to be fair to Ezri, the main reason she doubts what certainly appears to be real is that those around her have spend decades assuring her she is deluded.

Eudora is the rock on which petty official harassment, (from inconsistently applied HOA regulations to impertinent school officials to racist neighbours) break. Unfortunately for her children, Ezri in particular, Eudora is also the rock on which her children break. The Maxwell kids may have left home but home will never leave them.

Model Home is an effectively told narrative, although (as noted above) certain elements cannot be mentioned in a review. To mention that they exist at all would be a spoiler. Given the unreliable narrator at the centre of the tale, it’s never clear if this is a supernatural horror novel… but it’s never in doubt that it is a horror novel.

Model Home is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).