The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford Audiobook By Nafissa Thompson-Spires cover art

The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford
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The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford

By: Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free, Kamali Minter, Adenrele Ojo
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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. African American Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Funny Witty
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Critic reviews

"A mystery as layered as the voices that deliver it."
—Kirkus Reviews
"A period piece, a whodunit, and a dramedy from six perspectives, deftly performed by three narrators. Kevin R. Free acts as the omniscient narrator, representing the townspeople of Newville, Oklahoma, who gossip against a backdrop of prohibition, lynchings, and the mysterious death of the fast-living Richard Milford. Free’s skepticism plays nicely with the story’s comedic elements. The other voices are the women associated with Rich: Kamali Minter portrays Lally and Sophronia, and Adenrele Ojo handles Alberta, Georgette, and Vivianne. Minter’s leading ladies are the more devoted of Rich’s “wives,” their voices leaning sensual and sentimental. Ojo’s disparate cast, on the other hand, includes a cook, a disinterested partner, and a scorned lover. The agility required to make these voices sound distinct is impressive."
—Kirkus Reviews
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