CZM Book Club: St. Juju, by Rivers Solomon

Rivers Solomon's 'Model Home' interrogates the illusion of suburban stability by following characters entangled in housing precarity, surveillance, and haunting pasts. The novel blends social realism with speculative flourishes to critique capitalist notions of domestic perfection and the violences they conceal. Solomon centers queer and Black experiences while exposing how built environments shape and constrain lives. The book continues Solomon's interest in bodily and social transformation, using uncanny elements to reveal structural injustices. 'Model Home' received critical attention as a provocative, genre-bending critique of modern domesticity.

Rivers Solomon's 'An Unkindness of Ghosts' is a debut novel set aboard a rigidly segregated generation ship, following a young woman navigating systemic oppression and searching for truth about her past. The book examines how social hierarchies reproduce violence across enclosed societies and centers marginalized identities, including disability and queerness. It blends haunting atmosphere with sharp political insight, using the ship as a microcosm for broader historical injustices. Solomon's prose balances lyricism with incisive social critique, building toward acts of personal and collective rebellion. The novel received critical recognition and award nominations for its complex portrayal of trauma and survival.

Rivers Solomon's 'Saint Juju' is a short speculative fiction piece set in a future enclave sustained by mushroom gardens growing from old landfills. The story follows Juju and Enid—two queer protagonists navigating intimacy, belonging, and the decision to stay in a relatively safe enclave or venture into a dangerous but freer world. Solomon examines how oppression and violence persist even within repaired societies, while also celebrating desire, community, and small acts of bravery. Richly sensory and intimate, the narrative weaves themes of bodily difference, migration, and the ethics of utopia through vivid imagery of fungus and refuse. Originally published as part of The Verge's Better Worlds series, it showcases Solomon's characteristic blend of speculative worldbuilding and queer, diasporic storytelling.