Excerpt from Model Home by Rivers Solomon, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

My mother had a print of Jenny Holzer's 1982 Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise on the wall of her study. I comment on it for the first time when I am thirteen, shoulder pressed up against the doorframe.

Abuse of power surprises me every time, actually, I say, full of bravado.

Really? she says, and her reading glasses slip down her nose. She sees through my attempt at teenage indifference, knows my earnest heart.

You telling me you don't know by now to expect pain? says Mama.

I lived in a house devoted to my breaking apart, but I refused to be wrong in front of Mama.

I guess I hope every time it will be different.

I wait for Mama to mock my confession. A woman dedicated to relentless self-reliance, she's built her three children to be invulnerable.

Instead, she returns her attention to her computer screen, types an email, or an editorial letter, or her book. When I go to leave, she calls my name.

Yeah, I say. I mean, yes, ma'am.

Don't forget to take the chicken out the freezer.

Excerpted from Model Home by Rivers Solomon. Copyright © 2024 by Rivers Solomon. Excerpted by permission of MCD. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.