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AudioBook information:
Author: Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free, Kamali Minter, Adenrele Ojo
Release date: October 6, 2026
Audiobook Duration: 4 h 35 min
Summary: 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 1920s 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.
Reviews:
“Droll characterization, wry humor, and storytelling chops [are] displayed by the talented Thompson-Spires in this debut novel, …Reminiscent of T.C. Boyle, another master of the darkly whimsical short story, Thompson-Spires packs a sharp, caustic wit that yields plenty of compassion for even someone as mean and misbegotten as her title character. Is this a whodunit, or a ‘how-they-did-it’? However you define Thompson-Spires’ novel, it’s shrewd, audacious, and funny.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“A sizzling tale…Thompson-Spires’s beguiling story, full of competing versions of the truth, is enriched by commentary on capitalistic excess and male chauvinism, and by its exploration of the limits of individualistic social theories put forth by such Black leaders as Marcus Garvey and Booker T. Washington. Readers will be floored.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Compelling, witty, and absorbing… The strength of Thompson-Spires’ writing is found in her characters and the world-building of Newville, which shares a collective perspective throughout the novel and is a wholly unique, insular place… Readers will be captivated by these women and the town that binds them. Give to readers of Oscar Hokeah’s Calling for a Blanket Dance (2022) and Britt Bennett’s The Vanishing Half (2020).”—Booklist (starred review)
“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
About the Author:
Nafissa Thompson-Spires is the author of the award-winning, National Book Award longlisted short story collection, Heads of the Colored People. She earned a doctorate in English from ÂÂÂÂVanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from ÂÂÂÂÂÂthe University of Illinois. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, New York magazine’s “The Cut,” The Root, The White Review, Ploughshares, 400 Souls: A Community History of African America 1619–2019, and The 1619 Project, among other publications. In addition to a debut novel, The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Rich Milford, her young adult debut is forthcoming. She is the recipient of a 2024 United States Artists Grant and a 2019 Whiting Award.