Nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan, Magnolia feels haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, by her predatory landlord, by the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown. One night while working at her dead-end gas station job, a stranger named Cotton walks in and offers her a lucrative 'modeling' job at his family's funeral home. Magnolia accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia's problems fatten along with her wallet.
The novel shifts into something delightfully unusual ... It’s a lot, and occasionally it feels as if the novel meanders — story lines emerge and then fall away, superseded by yet another narrative development. But it’s a testament to Brashears’s enchanting storytelling that the deluge of plot doesn’t overwhelm the book. Just the opposite ... As the plot thickens, so do the questions the novel raises: What does support look like? To whom is it offered and why? At what cost does it come, and how do you step away when the price is too high? House of Cotton meditates on these moral dilemmas in fresh, haunting ways.
Hard to classify ... It's an incredible debut that announces the arrival of a unique voice in contemporary fiction ... House of Cotton is a bizarre, uncomfortable read in the best way possible. Brashears delves deep into what it means to be a young, broke woman of color in a world in which predatory men are at your doorstep, in the streets, and even at church. She's not always likable, but real people rarely are ... This is a novel that refuses to obey the rules of any one genre, and that, complicated as it might be for some, is one of the best things about it ... Peculiar and slightly surreal, but also dazzling, full of surprises, and told with a voice that's unpredictable and, more importantly, that lingers. Darkness can have slices of beauty at its core, and Brashears has a talent for pointing out that beauty, while its submerged in grit and grief. Fans of brave fiction would be remiss to skip this one.
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.
