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Surrogate Child
After the shocking suicide of fifteen-year-old Solomon Stern, a boy who seemed to have it all, his parents take on a foster child, a boy possessed by a terrible evil
368 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 1988
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122 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Neiderman
74 books393 followersAndrew Neiderman is the author of over 44 thrillers, including six of which have been translated onto film, including the big hit, 'The Devil's Advocate', a story in which he also wrote a libretto for the music-stage adaptation. One of his novels, Tender Loving Care, has been adapted into a CD-Rom interactive movie.
Andrew Neiderman became the ghostwriter for V.C. Andrews following her death in 1986. He was the screenwriter for Rain, a film based on a series of books under Andrews name. Between the novels written under her name and his own, he has published over 100 novels.
Andrew Neiderman became the ghostwriter for V.C. Andrews following her death in 1986. He was the screenwriter for Rain, a film based on a series of books under Andrews name. Between the novels written under her name and his own, he has published over 100 novels.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 6, 2015
This was dreadful. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with this book until 30% of the way through I noticed that there was actually no storyline. It was all just talking about the feelings. It is as so strange and so much left unanswered. I can't believe I actually finished it. I hate to invest my time into a book and not finish. I was curious to know what the whole point of the story was. I rolled my eyes at the ending.
August 12, 2014
Anti-climactic. I was debating whether to even finish this book, but I had to because I had to know what happened. The characters were not particularly interesting and the by the time this story had even pulled me in I only had 50 pages left. Definitely slow to start and quick to finish. The ending wasn't even creative..
May 28, 2025
David Seltzer, VC Andrews and Ira Levin combined! It was predictable. It reminded me of The Omen. An evil child wreaks havoc on a family and community. After I finished the book, I learned that this is the ghostwriter who finished VC Andrews’ books after she died. That makes sense. The book has the same sort of ridiculous sick relationships that appear in Flowers in the Attic. I don’t really care to read about teenage boys crawling in bed with their mummies. Ick. Yech!! I felt so sorry for the dad in the book. He seemed like a good person.
August 7, 2025
It’s been some time since I’ve read a horror or mystery book that generated a sense of palpable foreboding. Andrew Neiderman’s 1988 book, Surrogate Child, created that feeling on the first few pages and it didn’t let up until the literal last page. When I’m reading a horror or mystery book, I’m usually clocking when the “shit hitting the fan” moment occurs. Is it going to be 10 pages in? 100 pages? Surrogate Child is more insidious, and again, foreboding, in that there is not exactly any one escalating incident. More so, Neiderman establishes an undercurrent of unease that is always with the reader. That made for a book I couldn’t put down.
Joe and Martha lost their 15-year-old son, Solomon, when he died by suicide. He hanged himself on the tree outside their house. Neither parent saw it coming; Martha who was closest to him and Joe who wasn’t. What I found particularly resonate with Neiderman’s book is how vulnerable he made the Joe character as he questioned his relationship to his son, pined for a better father-son relationship, and reflected on his own potential failings. Of course, grief looms large over this book, too, particularly Martha’s character. Joe repairs computers and Martha is a homemaker. However, she’s also a bit odd and it’s hard at times to discern what is a genuinely odd character trait and what is something marred by grief. I came to see Joe and Martha’s relationship as Martha being the dominant one and often, at times, gaslighting Joe so he would acquiesce to her demands. One such “demand,” as it were, was her idea to take in a foster child after Solomon’s death. Not only to take in a foster child, but to take in one who was Solomon’s age and even looked similar to Solomon, hence the title of the book. Jonathan, the foster child, becomes the surrogate for Solomon, the surrogate for Martha’s unwillingness or inability to work with her grief. When Jonathan comes into the home, Martha is constantly comparing him to Solomon, dressing him in Solomon’s clothes, and of course, providing Jonathan Solomon’s preserved-in-amber bedroom, complete with his own computer still retaining Solomon’s digital diary.
What made Martha odd was her lack of boundaries with Solomon and then with Jonathan. She was regularly appearing in the nude in front of Solomon, taking showers with him, each of them washing the other’s backs then drying each other’s backs, and so on, even well into his early teen years. That’s not normal! Joe is uncomfortable with it, but as I said, Martha gaslights him about it. In other words, she makes Joe think he’s going crazy for questioning it at all.
Jonathan is a catfish before “catfishing” was in the lexicon. He also reminded me of the man from the unnerving and chilling documentary, 2012’s The Imposter. Whichever foster home he lands in, he mirrors what’s going on in the home. For example, with his prior foster family, the man was wheelchair-bound due to multiple sclerosis. Jonathan pretended to be afflicted by MS as well, going so far as to confine himself to a wheelchair and take the man’s medicine. The couple returned him to the foster agency. With Joe and Martha, because Jonathan not only has ready access to all of Solomon’s clothes and items — and Martha is willingly treating Jonathan like he’s Solomon — but also the computer diary that is essentially a How-To-Be-Solomon guide, Jonathan becomes Solomon. That only complicates Martha (and Joe’s!) grief, but also confuses people who knew Solomon, like Audra, his girlfriend who then becomes Jonathan’s girlfriend. After all, the thing with people like Jonathan, psychopaths essentially, is that they are capable of charming and winning people over. Which is what made Neiderman’s book so foreboding and insidious: As the reader, you know something is off about Jonathan, but Martha is fully smitten and committed to the Jonathan project, and Joe is slow to realize it. And even once Joe realizes it, Martha continues to gaslight and shut him down about it.
Thanks to the Solomon diary, Jonathan enacts some modicum of revenge on people Solomon seemed to dislike or was frustrated with, including Audra and another boy at the high school. Again, though, that’s what was intriguing about Surrogate Child: aside from those two incidents, there was nothing particularly explosive or violent within the book. The most haunting aspect was obviously the suicide talk and imagery, as well as Solomon appearing like a “ghost” to Martha. I put ghost in scare quotes because I’m still not sure if Martha was legitimately seeing Solomon’s ghost or if she was imagining it, owing to her grief. Regardless, she is so obsessed with making the Jonathan arrangement work, she begins to chastise and verbally abuse Solomon for taking his life and even uses the “dry my back after a shower” as a wedge between ghost Solomon and Jonathan. Boundaries! So, that aspect of Martha, who I think had to have had an inappropriate relationship at best with Solomon and a sexually abusive relationship at worse, never gets resolved. It’s merely insinuated throughout the book.
What does get resolved is Joe growing more and more suspicious of Jonathan and his subtle, manipulative, ingratiating ways. He visits the prior foster family to learn more concretely what happened. Then, unbeknownst to Martha, he calls the foster agency to have Jonathan returned. The night before Jonathan is to be sent back, he completes the mirroring of Solomon’s life by doing what Solomon did at the end of his: dying by suicide. Joe wakes up to Jonathan hanging from the tree. (Why didn’t they cut down the tree after Solomon’s death?! I would not want that visual reminder anywhere near me.)
Martha is institutionalized for a bit after Jonathan’s death. As time goes on though, she comes back home with Joe and then becomes pregnant. Joe is terrified the cycle is going to start up again and Solomon will find a way to curse this child. When they realize it’s a girl, they’re not as worried. However, the girl becomes curious, naturally, about her dead brother and Jonathan. Joe and Martha won’t discuss it, and she’s further told to not go in the attic. Once she’s 15 and her curiosity is insatiable, she goes in the attic and discovers Solomon’s old things, including his computer with his files (I thought Joe destroyed the computer, but I guess not). Neiderman ends with one last foreboding sentence, “And suddenly, it all began again.” Oof.
I enjoyed Neiderman’s self-assurance at going at a steadily escalating pace and sense of dread rather than trying to squeeze in unnecessary dramatic or violent moments. This book didn’t need them. The sense that something was off was enough to propel the book forward through to the climax. I do wish the Martha issues were better addressed or resolved, but overall, I enjoyed my first Andrew Neiderman book.
Joe and Martha lost their 15-year-old son, Solomon, when he died by suicide. He hanged himself on the tree outside their house. Neither parent saw it coming; Martha who was closest to him and Joe who wasn’t. What I found particularly resonate with Neiderman’s book is how vulnerable he made the Joe character as he questioned his relationship to his son, pined for a better father-son relationship, and reflected on his own potential failings. Of course, grief looms large over this book, too, particularly Martha’s character. Joe repairs computers and Martha is a homemaker. However, she’s also a bit odd and it’s hard at times to discern what is a genuinely odd character trait and what is something marred by grief. I came to see Joe and Martha’s relationship as Martha being the dominant one and often, at times, gaslighting Joe so he would acquiesce to her demands. One such “demand,” as it were, was her idea to take in a foster child after Solomon’s death. Not only to take in a foster child, but to take in one who was Solomon’s age and even looked similar to Solomon, hence the title of the book. Jonathan, the foster child, becomes the surrogate for Solomon, the surrogate for Martha’s unwillingness or inability to work with her grief. When Jonathan comes into the home, Martha is constantly comparing him to Solomon, dressing him in Solomon’s clothes, and of course, providing Jonathan Solomon’s preserved-in-amber bedroom, complete with his own computer still retaining Solomon’s digital diary.
What made Martha odd was her lack of boundaries with Solomon and then with Jonathan. She was regularly appearing in the nude in front of Solomon, taking showers with him, each of them washing the other’s backs then drying each other’s backs, and so on, even well into his early teen years. That’s not normal! Joe is uncomfortable with it, but as I said, Martha gaslights him about it. In other words, she makes Joe think he’s going crazy for questioning it at all.
Jonathan is a catfish before “catfishing” was in the lexicon. He also reminded me of the man from the unnerving and chilling documentary, 2012’s The Imposter. Whichever foster home he lands in, he mirrors what’s going on in the home. For example, with his prior foster family, the man was wheelchair-bound due to multiple sclerosis. Jonathan pretended to be afflicted by MS as well, going so far as to confine himself to a wheelchair and take the man’s medicine. The couple returned him to the foster agency. With Joe and Martha, because Jonathan not only has ready access to all of Solomon’s clothes and items — and Martha is willingly treating Jonathan like he’s Solomon — but also the computer diary that is essentially a How-To-Be-Solomon guide, Jonathan becomes Solomon. That only complicates Martha (and Joe’s!) grief, but also confuses people who knew Solomon, like Audra, his girlfriend who then becomes Jonathan’s girlfriend. After all, the thing with people like Jonathan, psychopaths essentially, is that they are capable of charming and winning people over. Which is what made Neiderman’s book so foreboding and insidious: As the reader, you know something is off about Jonathan, but Martha is fully smitten and committed to the Jonathan project, and Joe is slow to realize it. And even once Joe realizes it, Martha continues to gaslight and shut him down about it.
Thanks to the Solomon diary, Jonathan enacts some modicum of revenge on people Solomon seemed to dislike or was frustrated with, including Audra and another boy at the high school. Again, though, that’s what was intriguing about Surrogate Child: aside from those two incidents, there was nothing particularly explosive or violent within the book. The most haunting aspect was obviously the suicide talk and imagery, as well as Solomon appearing like a “ghost” to Martha. I put ghost in scare quotes because I’m still not sure if Martha was legitimately seeing Solomon’s ghost or if she was imagining it, owing to her grief. Regardless, she is so obsessed with making the Jonathan arrangement work, she begins to chastise and verbally abuse Solomon for taking his life and even uses the “dry my back after a shower” as a wedge between ghost Solomon and Jonathan. Boundaries! So, that aspect of Martha, who I think had to have had an inappropriate relationship at best with Solomon and a sexually abusive relationship at worse, never gets resolved. It’s merely insinuated throughout the book.
What does get resolved is Joe growing more and more suspicious of Jonathan and his subtle, manipulative, ingratiating ways. He visits the prior foster family to learn more concretely what happened. Then, unbeknownst to Martha, he calls the foster agency to have Jonathan returned. The night before Jonathan is to be sent back, he completes the mirroring of Solomon’s life by doing what Solomon did at the end of his: dying by suicide. Joe wakes up to Jonathan hanging from the tree. (Why didn’t they cut down the tree after Solomon’s death?! I would not want that visual reminder anywhere near me.)
Martha is institutionalized for a bit after Jonathan’s death. As time goes on though, she comes back home with Joe and then becomes pregnant. Joe is terrified the cycle is going to start up again and Solomon will find a way to curse this child. When they realize it’s a girl, they’re not as worried. However, the girl becomes curious, naturally, about her dead brother and Jonathan. Joe and Martha won’t discuss it, and she’s further told to not go in the attic. Once she’s 15 and her curiosity is insatiable, she goes in the attic and discovers Solomon’s old things, including his computer with his files (I thought Joe destroyed the computer, but I guess not). Neiderman ends with one last foreboding sentence, “And suddenly, it all began again.” Oof.
I enjoyed Neiderman’s self-assurance at going at a steadily escalating pace and sense of dread rather than trying to squeeze in unnecessary dramatic or violent moments. This book didn’t need them. The sense that something was off was enough to propel the book forward through to the climax. I do wish the Martha issues were better addressed or resolved, but overall, I enjoyed my first Andrew Neiderman book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2020
I’m a huge fan of V.C. Andrews and while I have mixed feelings concerning her ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, I was very curious about the work written under his name. I was delighted to find this at a secondhand book shop and immediately captured by the cover and synopsis.
This is labeled under horror, though it’s more like a family drama with horror elements. The story itself sounded interesting and it hooked me in, though the writing is a bit dated. Some older terms, like “simpatico”, were used more often than seemed necessary.
I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, especially the parents. Their relationship with their son was very strange, especially the one between Solomon and his mother. I was never quite sure just how weird their relationship got, though it was hinted at.
Stories about foster children are always interesting to me, especially horror but any suspense that might have been built in this book was stolen because Neiderman seemed to almost be beating me over the head with it.
The book was engaging but moved at a slower pace than I was expecting and aside from two instances, nothing exciting happened. The climax also lacked excitement and wasn’t a surprise at all. The ending has a bit of a twist to it, though it also isn’t very surprising and left me feeling “meh.”
Overall, I enjoyed the story and how it engaged me, but I felt that it could have been a lot better. I’m glad I read it but honestly wouldn’t read it again.
This is labeled under horror, though it’s more like a family drama with horror elements. The story itself sounded interesting and it hooked me in, though the writing is a bit dated. Some older terms, like “simpatico”, were used more often than seemed necessary.
I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, especially the parents. Their relationship with their son was very strange, especially the one between Solomon and his mother. I was never quite sure just how weird their relationship got, though it was hinted at.
Stories about foster children are always interesting to me, especially horror but any suspense that might have been built in this book was stolen because Neiderman seemed to almost be beating me over the head with it.
The book was engaging but moved at a slower pace than I was expecting and aside from two instances, nothing exciting happened. The climax also lacked excitement and wasn’t a surprise at all. The ending has a bit of a twist to it, though it also isn’t very surprising and left me feeling “meh.”
Overall, I enjoyed the story and how it engaged me, but I felt that it could have been a lot better. I’m glad I read it but honestly wouldn’t read it again.
February 23, 2008
I hated this book but I had to finish it. I needed to find out what happened. I will never recommend this book to anybody.
December 4, 2010
Creepy, riveting and suspenseful!
December 12, 2024
4.5 Stars
This was my second foray into Andrew Neiderman’s non V.C. Andrews work and ooh boy I loved it! This novel felt like everything I adore in vintage horror. It tells the story of Joe and Martha Stern whose fifteen year old son has unfortunately just passed away due to suicide. To fill the void he left in their life, they have made the difficult decision to foster a child around their son’s age, a valiant decision frankly, especially when that fifteen year old boy bares startling resemblances to their biological son, and not long after he arrives things start to go…wrong.
This book was amazing! It built the sense of dread and suspicion super well to the point where I didn’t know what exactly was going to happen but I knew it wasn’t going to be wrong. It’s set firmly in the 80s and feels as such. Technology is new and starting to bud up, kids have the freedom to move around much more than they do today, and talk around suicide and mental health are budding up but not fully formed quite yet. I felt like everything about this story was excellently done and just kept me turning the pages. Joe and Martha were both compelling characters (though neither of them feels particularly innocent in what happens) and there’s so many dark twists along the way.
I docked a half star just because there were certain things I wanted to be written a little bit more explicitly rather than implied, but I liked the fact that Neiderman chose to keep them questionable and vague while implying they happened nonetheless, so it didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
Overall I just really loved this book and highly highly recommend! Andrew Neiderman is gaining quite the fan out of me at this point. Between his V.C. work and his original stuff, I’ve now read 8 of his books and enjoyed every single one of them!
This was my second foray into Andrew Neiderman’s non V.C. Andrews work and ooh boy I loved it! This novel felt like everything I adore in vintage horror. It tells the story of Joe and Martha Stern whose fifteen year old son has unfortunately just passed away due to suicide. To fill the void he left in their life, they have made the difficult decision to foster a child around their son’s age, a valiant decision frankly, especially when that fifteen year old boy bares startling resemblances to their biological son, and not long after he arrives things start to go…wrong.
This book was amazing! It built the sense of dread and suspicion super well to the point where I didn’t know what exactly was going to happen but I knew it wasn’t going to be wrong. It’s set firmly in the 80s and feels as such. Technology is new and starting to bud up, kids have the freedom to move around much more than they do today, and talk around suicide and mental health are budding up but not fully formed quite yet. I felt like everything about this story was excellently done and just kept me turning the pages. Joe and Martha were both compelling characters (though neither of them feels particularly innocent in what happens) and there’s so many dark twists along the way.
I docked a half star just because there were certain things I wanted to be written a little bit more explicitly rather than implied, but I liked the fact that Neiderman chose to keep them questionable and vague while implying they happened nonetheless, so it didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
Overall I just really loved this book and highly highly recommend! Andrew Neiderman is gaining quite the fan out of me at this point. Between his V.C. work and his original stuff, I’ve now read 8 of his books and enjoyed every single one of them!
January 24, 2025
Two words- Overt Incest. That's what goes on in this book basically from start to finish. At the beginning, you find out that Solomon has already committed suicide and Martha and Joe have adopted Jonathan to basically take his place. Because why wouldn't they do that? Throughout the book, Martha gets naked in front of Jonathan whether she's taking a bath or brushing her hair. We learn that she also did this with Solomon. We also learn that Solomon is haunting everyone but his father. So was Solomon a bad kid? Is Jonathan the bad kid? Why are the parents so dimwhitted? There was no true "horror" from this book. I guess the real horror is reading 300 pages and finding out that I didn't find out why Solomon committed suicide, although overt incest might be why, also not getting closure from several deaths that happened earlier in the book. Oh Andrew, Pin was much better. Even Brainchild was more easier to digest
January 24, 2023
Didn't really have a plot, many plot holes. Big book for so little written. Ending wasn't surprising or horrifying although it's supposed to be horror genre. They elude to something really bad but then it's never mentioned again. Strange book.
October 9, 2015
This is probably one of the earliest novels (1988) to feature a desktop PC as a primary element...all ten megabytes! Mysterious files act as a malevolent catalyst of some sort, and keep re-appearing even after being deleted...except the question of how and what is mostly left hanging.
Thats not so bad really, because where this story really shines is in the suggestive descriptions of creeping doom in the life of a family. Mom is very taken with her new adopted son, and vice versa, gradually to the point where her husband is left to wonder in silence about their whispering behind his back. His wife rises in a trance from her bed at night to visit her boy...in the nude??? Mother and son gaze at each other in deep communion, while staring blankly at Pops as if he were a stranger in his own house. Whats going on here? We never do find out in any explicit fashion...but who cares? A good story in the horror genre should make the reader feel as if the SPACE itself in the which the plot unfolds is almost 'sentient', as if it holds a 'presence'. And that presence should never be revealed in its entirety.
Thats not so bad really, because where this story really shines is in the suggestive descriptions of creeping doom in the life of a family. Mom is very taken with her new adopted son, and vice versa, gradually to the point where her husband is left to wonder in silence about their whispering behind his back. His wife rises in a trance from her bed at night to visit her boy...in the nude??? Mother and son gaze at each other in deep communion, while staring blankly at Pops as if he were a stranger in his own house. Whats going on here? We never do find out in any explicit fashion...but who cares? A good story in the horror genre should make the reader feel as if the SPACE itself in the which the plot unfolds is almost 'sentient', as if it holds a 'presence'. And that presence should never be revealed in its entirety.
August 3, 2025
I really enjoyed this book, personally. I do think the ending could have had more oomph and overall the book could have been longer and more thought out. But it was enjoyable and it kept me intrigued till the end.
August 5, 2016
It's a chilling tale about a family who loses their son to suicide and adopt another one in hopes to feel more complete.
November 21, 2013
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
April 30, 2017
Good ending, not what I thought was going to happen. The beginning was a slow start but it got better. I'm glad I kept reading.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews