The Sofa

by Sam Munson

Kafkaesque slow-burn domestic horror from a master of the uncanny.

Mr. Montessori and his family return home from a trip to the beach to discover that their sofa is different. Once dark and contemporary, it’s now antique, green and yellow, and smelling faintly of damp. Its appearance and origins are a mystery. A joke? An inverted theft? A break in the fabric of reality? Yes, the police take the “crime” seriously. But what happens next lies outside their expertise. Strange sounds in the night. A half-bathroom toilet with a mind of its own. Odd, fleeting glimpses of something (or someone) in mirrors. The inexplicable vision of Montessori’s...he swears he saw a burglar...

Montessori’s quest for answers will take him to a dank highway overpass in decayed upstate New York, a very strange dry-cleaning supply concern in outermost Queens, and into the depths of an eerie, warped forest where time and space no longer connect, all while putting his ever-more-troubled marriage and young family in grave danger. But that’s what it costs to find out if we own our possessions—or if they own us.

Munson emerges as a master stylist in this tense, taut work of surreal humor and psychological horror.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Audiobook, Horror Thriller, Short Stories

130 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 11, 2025

Reviews

[verynicebook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gave me some serious Tim Robinson's The Chair Company meets Franz Kafka. It was very absurd but it was totally up my alley! Who ever thinks about a couch going missing, not to mention it being replaced with an ugly old couch and then it.. is haunted? Honestly made me laugh out loud and the writing was so incredible I would have believed this to be an old classic if you told me so! Highly recommend, may be one of my favourites of the year. Thank you very much to the publisher via Edelweiss for providing my review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird little book. You should read it if you are looking for a weird little book. I hesitate to give it a genre or label beyond that because I don't think it is anything other than a weird little book. If that is what you are looking for, this book will hit the spot.

There is a creepy (haunted?) sofa. The weirdness in the book is quite effective. The prose is in a very flat style, it made me think of reading Kafka or Gogol. (Although have I really read that much Kafka? Or is this just what I imagine Kafka would read like?) This is quite short, but things also keep moving and there is enough of it that is familiar and real that the strange parts hit effectively.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

So long haunted house horror. Say hello to haunted couch horror!

I was so stoked to land a copy of this one. I've been a fan of Two Dollar Radio for a long time and this book just screams "read me"!

A man and his family return home from a day at the beach to find that their couch has been replaced by a smaller, slightly musty one. No signs of forced entry. Nothing else stolen or broken. Just... the couch. The incident and the strange, smelly couch wholly unsettle the man but his wife and two sons don't seem to mind much, especially once the police report has been made and a new couch is on backorder. And they also don't seem to notice the random flushing of the toilet and the faucet turning on in the downstairs bathroom when no one is in there, and they don't appear to be haunted by peripheral glimpses of a man with a bowler hat and glasses and a bushy mustache, either. But he does and he is. And he's worried he's losing his shittin' mind.

I read this in one sitting you guys, it was just so unsettlingly fun. I mean imagine it, the place you were the most comfortable, where you stretched out, kicked back and relaxed, now no longer feels safe, but begins to feel malevolent and malicious.

The tight prose and mental mind fucking really gets under your skin. Psychological horror with possessed furniture? Hell yeah, sign me up. Just promise me you'll leave my couch out of it!

Also, can we talk about how fabulous that cover is?!?

[ritareadthat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you believe in the supernatural—in weird, bizarre "coincidences"?

In recent weeks, my daily walks would bring me upon old abandoned sofas out on the sidewalks—yes, I am completely aware that the book I'm about to review is a horror book titled "The Sofa."

I'm making connections here; don't sidetrack me.

I have been taking photos of these sofas sitting dejectedly on the curb. I'm sure the appearance of them probably has something to do with the fact that I live near a mid-size university and/or that it could be fall "large furniture" pickup days by the waste disposal companies. Whatever the reason, I feel that they are following me. I see them all of the time now and have been posting shots of them in my stories.

I have a photographic attraction to the decrepit; what can I say? I always have. There were many instances while photographing a wedding that I would put a beautiful bride in the most rundown, shabby location. I love that contrast of beauty and decay.

Returning to sofas—now that I've read this book and am collecting my thoughts for this post...well, I just don't know. Are they following me?

I think they knew I was going to read this book. This is how my brain works. I feel that things happen the way they do for a reason, whether the universe is trying to tell me something or not. No, I don't believe that inanimate objects are speaking to me, but could they? Why do we write stories about creepy things? Monsters? Aliens? The bizarre and strange? Let's look at the mind of just one person—Stephen King—a prolific horror author (and my personal fave). You know there is a lot of strange sh*t going on in that head. I feel sometimes, maybe not always, we are trying to make sense out of that which can't be known, which lies beyond reason. So we try to create that reason, because the "not knowing" is the part that is too much for our brains to comprehend. We NEED to know—even if it's terrifying.

I read The Sofa in a couple of days between, like, 50 other books I'm reading—it's short, thrilling, tense, and fast-paced. I enjoy a quick read, so as I was pulled into this, I could definitely appreciate the pacing. Our story is simple. A family, the Montessoris, return home from a day out to find their sofa has mysteriously been replaced with an antique eyesore; it is inundated with dilapidated cushions that are imbued with a musty smell and Addams Family vibes.

Mr. Montessori wants the sofa gone; he and Mrs. Montessori just want their old sofa back. After many phone calls and lots of hemming and hawing with various companies, the sofa must stay—for now. What transpires next is a descent into madness for Mr. Montessori. Odd happenings and strange coincidences involving his family and his house have him questioning his sanity. Is it the sofa that's causing all of this?

The author gives you just enough info throughout this story to keep reading; you yearn to understand what's happening, why it's happening, and what's causing all of the fuss. When I was younger, books like this would infuriate me. I didn't understand why the author couldn't just tell you everything. The unknown is the best part; now that I'm older, I understand and appreciate this. NOT KNOWING can leave so much up to your imagination, and an active imagination is the good stuff that goes on in the spaghetti noodles inside your head.

Thanks to The Sofa, I'll be a little more wary of my run-ins with sofas on the street. I won't shy away from them; it's just a sofa after all. What harm could it cause? (Possibly thinks Mr. Montessori as well at the beginning of this story.) But I will let my imagination run wild when I see them. Thanks, Sam Munson, for putting ideas in my head.




11/5/25 : 3.5 Stars
Was a little repetitive, but definitely tense and thriller-ish in premise and plot progression. I was a tad confused at times, thinking certain things had more meaning than that which was ever revealed, but that's probably the beauty of this type of book—what is not said and left up to speculation. It's both the best type of scenario and utterly maddening at the same time.

Many thanks to Two Dollar Radio for an ebook ARC in exchange for my honest review. I did enjoy it!

[Sheena · Rating 2 out of 5]

incredibly dull for a novella about a haunted sofa

[T.J. Price]

Billed as a "Kafkaesque, slow-burn, uncanny horror," I found little enjoyable in this book, sadly. The concept immediately hooked me: a man and his family return from a beach vacation to discover that their living room sofa has been replaced by another, alien piece of furniture, described in various hideous ways. (one of the most notable being "warm, like a dog's skin beneath its pelt") Odd stylistic choices echo throughout the book intentionally, but don't ever seem to add up to anything, merely existing for the sake of "being weird," unless I missed a clue somewhere, which feels unlikely. Repetitions of tertiary elements named "H— M—" spring up randomly. Repeated phrases ("cool, clinical gaze") occur at unpredictable intervals. A particular character intervenes at three distinct occasions, identifiable as the same character (despite different guises) via more repeated prose. It feels like Munson was trying to make a nod to a Mephistophelean dynamic here, but there's nothing else Faustian about this read whatsoever that I can determine.

In fact, everything that seemed intriguing at the outset is never explicated by the author—for example, though Munson names the protagonist's "oldest son" (Josep) he deliberately never gives the youngest son a name. Maybe this is done as some kind of psychological gesture to the protagonist's declining mental health, but there's not enough context to support any inquiry further into it, so it just seems like random affectation on the author's part. In addition, the plot seems to manufacture a "Kafkaesque" environment by manipulating external contrivances to contravene any "realistic" attempts on the protagonists' part to removing the hideous piece of furniture from their lives, once it is clear that the sofa is the origin point of their woes. Deliveries are late, then cancelled. Hauling companies inexplicably overlook appointments. The family's dynamic seems to be slowly falling apart, with the father figure suffering a variety of maladies. It recalls other similar texts wherein one member of the family is tortured by inexplicable, existential horrors that the others cannot, or else refuse to acknowledge. This trope of slow alienation from the familiar usually points to a deeper psychological subtext, but here it felt more like a vague gesture in that general direction; using a similar framework, but not bothering to build its own edifice.

I was disappointed—Two Dollar Radio (the press) has also published Bennett Sims' work (which I find delightful, if slightly arch) and The Orange Eats Creeps (which I did not care for, but whose experimentalism I respected) by Grace Krilanovich. This short novel just feels like a stretched-out, amateurish version of a story by Robert Aickman. Aickman's pieces often have uncanny elements and bizarre events, but they always feel resonant under the surface, even if I can't quite grasp how. The Sofa is written in a uniformly terse fashion, and the syntax is rather staid, which made me impatient as I turned the deckled pages (SO deckled, in fact, that it made the paper physically difficult to grasp. I love physical aesthetic as much as the next person, but not when it impedes the actual task of reading.) Oddly, there's also a strange emphasis on the organic. Multiple mentions of defecation and urination speckle the plot, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, and usually in the form of a briefly-described odor. Despite this, the read is largely antiseptic, and leaves hardly any trace of itself on the psyche. (There is, however, a bit of graphically-described animal violence midway through, for those who are sensitive to such things.)

In another review here on Goodreads, it is mentioned that this book immediately reminded the reader of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca, as well as Acquired Taste by Clay McLeod Chapman. Nothing could be further from the truth, and makes me wonder if this reviewer even read this book, or if they just glanced at the synopsis of a "mundane object gone creepy" and based their so-called "analysis" on that. This review commits a number of sins—it is a splintered, confusing mess of run-on sentences, but it's also completely bizarre to me. LaRocca's prose is often so purple and bloated that it's as bruised as a serial onanist's tortured organ, whereas Munson's prose here is terse, clinical, and flat. I will say that said review does mention The Grip of It by Jac Jemc as a comparative to The Sofa, which I think approximates the feeling here, but absolutely nowhere in this text can be found anything even CLOSE to resembling Jemc's glittering, menace-filled prose, nor does it involve any of the literary legerdemain that Jemc employs in her constant shifting of perspectives. Here, we are limited entirely to the protagonist's viewpoint, and though the uncanny elements of the book are enjoyably creepy, they ultimately feel thin and insubstantial, dissipating by story's end like a foul smell on the breeze.

If you're a fast reader and just want something kinda weird as an amuse-bouche, you could do worse. But if you're looking for substance and not just style, I'd try a different furniture outlet.

[myreadingescapism · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was meant to be funny right? 😅

[Becky Spratford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review in the October 2025 issue of Library Journal

Three Words The Describe This Book: Horror in the mundane, dark humor, intensely psychological

More words: uncanny, taut, surreal, extreme discomfort, Weird, absurd yet relatable, portrait of a man unravelling or is it truly supernatural, utterly terrifying.

Draft Review:
Munson’s surreal, darkly humorous, and intense psychological novella finds horror in the most basic of objects– the living-room couch. Mr. Montessori and his family return home from a long day at the beach to find their sofa has been swapped with a battered, smelly, green and yellow replacement. With no other signs of break-in or burglary, the family and police are stumped. Thus begins the tale of Mr Montessori’s mental unravelling. Told solely from his point of view, readers watch with extreme discomfort as every attempt get rid of it fails and the sofa begins to consume every aspect of Montessori’s life, Despite its absurdity, this taut, discomfiting, immersive read is very relatable; in fact, readers will be giving their own couches the side-eye for a while after finishing this one.

Verdict: For fans of horror that uses mundane objects to frame a story that holds the readers’ nervous system hostage, keeps them glued to the page (despite their instinct to look away) such as Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by LaRocca, The Grip of It by Jamec, or the stories in Acquired Taste by Chapman.


Simple yet absurd premise for this novella (which is best read in as few sittings as possible)-- A family from Queens-- Mr Montessori the father and only narrator, wife, older son, and younger son-- comes home from a long day at the beach to find that their living room sofa is gone and has been replaced by an old, slightly smelly green and yellow sofa. Nothing else has been disturbed or taken.

Thus begins a psychological unraveling of Mr Montessori. As the sofa seems to take over his life. It causes him physical pain, the family cat is afraid of it, a tag with a strange name connects him to a man that keeps reappearing in his life.

The old couch is found early in the book by police. It has been "murdered" and dumped under a bridge. But that is just the beginning of Mr Montessori's obsession with getting rid of this interloper crunch.

This is the story of Mr Montessori's psychological unraveling. Literally we are watching him lose his mind. Or is he being manipulated by the sofa.

This is a story that holds the reader hostage and takes over their nervous system. The premise is absurd and yet you buy in and feel the terror in every part of your body. I could not read this sitting on a couch which is high praise for this book.

Seriously You will side eye your couch for days, maybe weeks after finishing this one.

I thought of a few books IMMEDIATELY while reading this. First, the terror of a haunted couch and the psychological unravelling of the protagonist because of it made me think of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca. In that case it is an apple peeler but the idea of what the author is doing though that mundane object is the same. LaRocca's story is way more intense and visceral, but the way they make you feel is similar.

Also THE GRIP OF IT by Jac Jemc one of my favorite house centered, psychological horror novels about a person unravelling. In this case it is the husband and the wife getting the POV. Also there is a weird neighbor situation in that one too.

And finally, Clay McLeod Chapman's latest release-- Aquired Taste is a short story collection where many of those stories doe what The Sofa does (and Chapman's are a little stronger over. some of that is because they are shorter so he captures what is best about the feeling without having to go on for longer) Chapman has a lot of stories that take something mundane and make it intensely psychologically upsetting-- ex baby carrots, a phone booth, a breast pump, SANTA! Same idea though.

Also Now You're One of Us by Nonami is a great paired readalike here as well.

[Lydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a fan of the Two Dollar Radio imprint now, so that’s nice

Sam Munson read from the beginning of this book at Franklin Park Reading Series, and it intrigued me so much, I bought the book right then and there.

The premise is odd and absurd: a stolen couch and a replacement sofa (left by the thief, supposedly). The tension builds gradually with anxiety-packed scenes and descriptions of intense paranoia that doubtlessly dissolve into nothing… which, in fact, amplifies the tension as the reader carefully examines each detail and oddity, wondering if this will be the clue to tie things together and illuminate the truth. However, a “logical” explanation promptly follows each incident or outburst, further destabilizing the main character’s (and reader’s) perspective.

—

A review from Publishers Weekly states “Munson sticks the landing,” which calls to mind a much different image of the ending than that with which I was left…

Rather than anticipate the ending to land as a talented gymnast would, I would advise readers to anticipate the ending to land as a fistful of oobleck would - smacking into the ground before oozing away into shallow puddles.

—

As another reader said: “Weird, creepy, but kind of pointless in the end”

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Am Sofa King We Todd Did

[hailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a weird lil book

[Rachel Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

what does it mean though? I liked the whooole thing until the ending. because, like, what happened? as another reviewer said, this is a weird little book. take the absurd idea of a haunted/cursed? couch...but make it eerie and a little claustrophobic. I'd love to hear other people's takes on this one. I liked it and I'd recommend for people who like something odd, perhaps they'd be able to tease out the meaning.

[Vin Canofcoke · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good book! sufficiently unnerving and weird in the exact way that i wanted. i knocked a star off bc they killed the cat and that made me upset more so than anything else in the book. it was good storytelling-wise for it to die but i just never want to read an animal death. but even despite that i loved this book!

the writing was very flat and blunt in a way that really lent itself to the creepiness of it all, and the lack of quotation marks and character names made it really unnerving. loved it. perfect book to read on a short flight

[Ashley Sharudin-Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best comparison I can make is the ending of The Lighthouse, but a little less coherent.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our couch has been heavily abused by the cats. It’s in terrible condition and very uncomfortable. I would STILL take it over the nightmare sofa Sam Munson created!

The Sofa is wild and weird. My jaw dropped so many times and that ending—well, I don’t even know what to say. This is the kind of book that will have you repeating, “What in the actual fu…dgsicle is happening?”

If you like bizarre horror, you need to get a copy of this one in your hands immediately!

[Sam Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

DANG. This was crazy and laughable at times. I am so thankful to Two Dollar Radio, Sam Munson, and Edelweiss for granting me advanced digital access to this piece of poetic chaos before it hits shelves to the public on November 11, 2025.

One evening, Mr. Montessori and his family come home to find their home has been broken into — nothing major has been stolen except for their sofa (and replaced with a new one) — not seeming to be an issue for his family, our MC is completely shocked at their reactions and begins to spiral in a downward motion as he struggles to uncover how this could have happened.

This party of one further loses his mind as particularly supernatural events occur in his midst such as a mysterious bowler hat appearing and disappearing, his toilet flushing on its own and the faucet turning on, and even an old man wearing said bowler hat appearing in reflections behind him… all of course invisible to his family’s view — allowing them to grow more concerned for his sanity.

Readers take the ride with Mr. Montessori as he navigates the madness that this new couch has delivered. Is this sofa hiding residual pain or could it all be in our MC’s head?

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

HAUNTED SOFAAA 💗💜🛋️💜💗

This weekend I read The Sofa by Sam Munson. The premise is a family who comes back from the beach to find that their sofa has been mysteriously replaced with an old antique one. We mainly follow the father, Mr. Montessori, as he spirals into psychological chaos over the haunted piece of furniture.

What a fun premise!! This little novella sounded perfect for spooky season and it was definitely a fun little read. There were some surprisingly funny moments (one I laughed out loud to) and for me it definitely came across as a horror comedy.

Overall it fell a little short of my expectations, mostly due to the writing which felt too distanced and choppy, and every time there was a curse word it felt jarringly out of place. There also seemed to be a lot of clues about the sofa that didn’t seem to go anywhere in the end, or maybe I’m just too dumb…Still, coming in at a little less than 130 pages this was worth the quick read! Also, the cover art is perfection.

[Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lil strange, a plot with some aspects of proto-magical realism that are so synonymous with Kafka’s works. Several items in both plot and prose add to the sense of slight unease and uncertainty. The sofa’s appearance, its slow spreading malice, and the inability on Montessori to be believed reminds me a bit of The Trial in its proceedings. The way this unexplainable thing bleeds into Montessori’s life really feels similar in this way. Montessori’s younger son seems aware of the sofa’s nature in some ways which is also a touch unnerving. The man with the mole’s repeated appearance adds a surrealist feeling as he continues to have more jobs and seems cosmically aware of what plagues Montessori in the end. From a prose stand point, the youngest son never being named and also randomly mentioning a job where he works with rabies and is completely ignored is odd and dreamlike. There are also dialogue items such as the wife’s sudden attack of her husband’s anger, describing it as poisoning and toxic, which felt direct and aggressive in a way that was out of place with much of the narrative tone. This same feeling of narrative tone differences happens a few times with the occasional profanity or interruption of plot for bowel movements or urination. It’s random and disruptive and a touch jarring. It feels as if the narrator is suddenly losing composure just as Montessori is frequently doing despite best efforts. Long stretches with intricate vocab and simple descriptions being disrupted by calling something shitty or fucked up felt like slip ups from composure which was interesting. The ending was fascinating in its own ways, as it raises a few questions to me. How did the sink turn on and the toilet flush given what happened to the sofa? Especially with the final reveal? Also, quite enjoyed the sofa becoming what it was at the end, it’s a touch absurd and really fits the story well. All in all, a fun and weird lil read that I enjoyed! :)

[Haylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sofa is both a very strange and a very mundane book. A fairly typical “decent into madness” novella where a series of oddities impact our protagonist after his family’s sofa is inexplicably replaced. The Sofa is definitely a surreal story, though I’m not sure I found it extremely horrifying. The back of the book describes itself as slow burn, and this is definitely the truth. I thought it was interesting despite not much truly happening, and found different aspects that were left in the air fun to analyze.
While I’m not sure the format of the story particularly belongs in the review, I feel like I have to add that reading the book itself was not particularly pleasant for me. The wider pages and rough cut edges of this copy were not my thing, and the dialogue format wasn’t my favorite either. Objectively, I think the script-like style did add to the oddness of the story, but (and maybe I’m just stuck in my ways) I really would have just preferred quotation marks when characters spoke. I didn’t feel it was fair for any of these factors to impact my rating, but be prepared for the different formatting if you give this one a read (which I still would recommend!)

[Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psychological domestic horror about a man’s slow descent into existential madness. Mr. Montessori is a businessman and family man living an upper–middle-class life of quiet comfort with his wife and two sons. That comfort disintegrates after a family beach trip, when they wake to find their couch missing and a not-so-new antique, damp, stripped sofa in its place. The intrusion marks the beginning of a curse, as a series of unsettling events send him into a spiral with a mysterious, round man in a bowler hat and monocle seemingly at the helm. The horror in “The Sofa” is uncanny and tense - more creepy than scary - but the anxiety inducing mystery and short length make it an easy one-sitting read (although life made it a two-three sitting read for me).

[Erin Crane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fine! It meanders its way through the story and doesn’t always feel like it’s consistently escalating. It’s also got a lot of brief scenes which makes it feel breezy. Not my favorite style of storytelling.

I definitely liked the conclusion, and I have so many questions - like why is the younger son never named? Other questions would be spoilers 😂

A little too much weirdness that I couldn’t make sense of perhaps, but I do enjoy reading a character unravel!

[Amy Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was written almost like translated fiction, so I was surprised to realize this was taking place in New York City. I was expecting something in the end to happen that would justify this book’s lower ratings, but I really enjoyed the whole thing. I’m a little confused about why the younger son wasn’t given a name, but the older son was, and all I can really come up with was that perhaps it was the MC’s way of protecting his son as much as he could, since so much else was out of his control.

[J Kuria · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Ali G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This hit the weird button for me! Love a truly bizarre story, I just felt like some things were left hanging. Some things were all over the place but I loved the premise and the oddness of the things the narrator experiences.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what I wanted!

[Alexis Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

the sofa by sam munson 💕 a family comes back from the beach to find that their sofa has been mysteriously replaced with an old antique one.

what a weird little book! at face value, the sofa is a domestic drama… just one with a sofa that ✨may or may not✨ turn into a real, breathing man. munson’s writing style had SO many funny one-liners and scenes, I was laughing out loud. there were a lot of clues sprinkled throughout about the sofa, but the ending wraps up nothing?? just go in expecting that!

do we own our possessions or do they own us? 🛋️ 3 stars!

[Shilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember where I got this book but if you can get it, you should. It's about one man's descent into madness caused by a sofa???! Yep. It's a crazy concept but if you put yourself in his shoes would you do the same? I'd like to think I wouldn't let a sofa get to me but you never know what will push you over the edge. Don't get me started about the ottoman. It's a great read, lots of twists and definitely worth your time. I guarantee you will never look at a sofa the same way again.

[dayi novas · Rating 3 out of 5]

oh yeah this is my type of book. ridiculous. this is a 3.5 or maybe 5🌟 i’m gonna read everything this guy has written byebye

[Kip Kyburz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique and propulsive little horror book. Odd and great!

[Ronjit Mukherjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

what am interesting weird book. burned through it and that for me is a 5