"Thompson-Spires, a wondrously deft short story writer, has now given us a first novel that, while slim, manages to pack in an epic’s worth of lives, histories, and mysteries. This is a deliciously sweet and sour tour-de-force."—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
“The Four Wives And Five Deaths of Richard Milford is sharp, expansive, and polyphonic, a propulsive novel rendered with the wit and care present in all of Thompson-Spires’ work.”—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
"Nafissa Thompson-Spires is a one of one. The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford presents her humor and heart at full tilt. A beautiful novel that makes you smile even as it hurts."—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars
"That Nafissa Thompson-Spires can conjure so much atmosphere in so few pages is both a feat and a mystery. From oil money to the rodeo, electric love and sudden death, Oklahoma positively blooms with violence and mercy alike. The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford unfolds with rare economy and force."—Kiley Reid, author of Come and Get It
"Line by line, The Four Wives And Five Deaths of Richard Milford is mesmerizing, tautly written, and wickedly funny. A truly enjoyable work."—Jami Attenberg, author of A Reason to See You Again
"A deeply satisfying novel that cracles as much with Thompson-Spires's singular intelligence as it does with mystery. I loved this ode to wild women, small towns, wily rumors and Black humor so much. A must-read."—Angela Flournoy, author of The Wilderness
Description
From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Award–longlisted, “vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive” (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself.
Rich Milford is dead. At last.
We find ourselves in 1920’s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. Now, on the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford was an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. He’s dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why?
Top suspects are his four “wives,” Lally, Sophronia, Georgette, and Vivianne. But as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes.
In an electric follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires once again serves up a brilliant distillation of front-of-mind happenings—think, cults of personality, capitalism run amok in politics, and rampant societal distrust—structured like a stupefying line dance. In her uniquely powerful, humorous manner, Thompson-Spires takes on the interdependent clash of the traditional and the newfangled in this gobsmackingly excellent novel.
