House of Cotton

by Monica Brashears

Genres: Literary Fiction; Horror; Mystery; Suspense

Synopsis

A stunning, contemporary Black southern gothic novel about what it means to be a poor woman in the God- fearing south. The perfect audiobook if you loved The Other Black Girl and Luster.

“Every page, every scene, every sentence of Monica Brashears’s debut novel House of Cotton dazzles and surprises. An intense, enthralling, and deeply satisfying read!” —Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

"A new, dazzling, and essential American voice." —George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo

Magnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.

One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.

Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone. House of Cotton will keep you mesmerized until the very end.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

Release date: April 4, 2023

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

I ain’t ever felt as trapped and choked as I do right now. When I get this way, when I feel like kudzu is wrapped tight around my ribcage and I’m bleeding a bright heat, I like to slip inside my head. I can forget about this hardbacked pew and all the silk, wide-brimmed hats bobbing to the mourning gospel. I ain’t here. I ain’t in Mountain Bend Baptist. I ain’t even in Tennessee.

I am a little black bean. I am a little black bean in England, 1734, and a boy is carrying me home. When we get to his cottage, his mama says: Boy, I just know you ain’t sell the cow for some beans. Before she whips the white off him with her slipper, she throws me out the window, but I ain’t hurt. I am a little black bean landed in soft loam. I sleep deep in the cool ground. When the morning comes, the sun don’t wake me. The boy wakes me. His skinny fingers grip my sides. I am a stalk: thick, and green, and healthy, and tall enough to touch heaven. But the boy can’t let me be. He wraps his legs around me and pulls up his milk-fed body. His bones dig into me. I say, “The fuck you climbing up me for?”

A smooth palm rubs my shoulder, tugs me back to the eulogy.

“Magnolia, baby. Your granny got peace, now.” The dusk-colored woman next to me must have mistaken my laughter for sobbing. She traces loops on my arm, soft as a whisper, with her acrylic, until Pastor Wooly strikes something in her. “Hallelujah!” She claps. Mama Brown and me, we only came to church twice a year. Easter and Christmas. I can’t remember her name. But she loved my Mama Brown. Unlike most people.

They sure didn’t love her enough to know she’d hate the flowers clustered around her casket: fluffed carnations, limp roses, tongue-colored peonies. Mama Brown would have wanted something like home: garden tulips with sprigs of baby’s breath. They got her face all wrong, too. Her foundation is two shades too light and Bible thick. And she wouldn’t want this rambling sermon. She would want music and happy dancing.

“Now, what the Good Lord say?” Pastor Wooly taps the head of the microphone on the back of his hand. He is a dark and wrinkled man, with a tuft of dandelion seed for hair. Every Sunday, he starts his routine by hobbling up to the altar with his cane. This funeral ain’t no different. When he catches the Spirit, Pastor Wooly throws his arms up. The sound of the cane smacking against the hardwood floor always results in a resounding Hallelujah. The individual voices of the congregation—the throaty, old women; the young men with fire under their toes that make them jump, jump; the sinners that find bits of glory in their mouths—become a uniform voice, strong and deep. When I was little, I thought in these moments he was conjuring up the voice of God. Now I know that ain’t true.

“I’ll tell you what the Good Lord say,” Pastor Wooly says.

“Yes, Pastor,” a man in the back shouts.

“He say, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”

“Hallelujah,” the pretty woman next to me says.

“Y’all hear me?” Pastor Wooly jumps, loses his breath. Every other word is shot into our ears with a wavering inhale. “He say, I am-uh the resurrection-uh and the life-uh!” The cane smacks the floor.

“Hallelujah!” The congregation rises.

I can’t stand the thought of standing around, being strangled by hugs and White Diamonds and Old Spice and condolences. All the God Bless You’s the church plans to gift me can’t take away this hurt. Can’t take away me knowing that the only person who would have an answer to my problem is stiff and mute in an oak box.

I slink out the side door that opens to the edge of the cemetery. The horizon ripens with red; it’ll be dark before they lower Mama Brown.

“Miss Magnolia,” a voice calls from the headstones.

 

Sugar Foot saunters from the cusp of the open grave, puffing on a wrinkled roll-up. He grins when he reaches me. “Ain’t this some bullshit?”

I didn’t see Sugar Foot during the funeral. He sure ain’t dressed for one: mahogany suit with a gold tie and a slanted Fedora to match. I been knowing this man my whole life, and I ain’t ever seen him out of his deacon clothes: white shirt and slacks. He tosses a disk of butterscotch.

I catch it. He been feeding me sweets since I was little. “Sir? What you mean?”

He waves his lit cigarette in circles at the door. “All this. Your granny would hate this.”

“Mama Brown’d be fine with it,” I say, “Church has done their best.”

He takes a drag, blows a fat cloud of smoke in the space between us. “I seen a miracle in there.”

“A miracle?”

“Yes, Miss Magnolia. I seen about ten women in there crying with dry eyes. Not a damn tear.” He chuckles.

I smile. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

The door opens. “We been looking for you all over, girl,” Pastor Wooly says.

“You drive?” Sugar Foot asks as I step in.

“No, sir. I walked here,” I say.

“I’ll take you after.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pastor Wooly leads me back to the front pew; the pallbearers lift Mama Brown like she’s light as a wish.

I follow the shuffling crowd out to the dirt, this tiny fenced in graveyard. How would I feel if could weep? Silly. Wetting the earth with tears ain’t ever made anybody sprout. The last light of the day sinks into the ground with her.