Denver-based David Milofsky grew up in Wisconsin and graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst’s MFA for Poets & Writers program. It makes sense that he chose Milwaukee and Boston as the primary settings for his sixth novel, A Milwaukee Inheritance. Charming yet irresolute narrator Andy Simonson, a Yale Law School alum, returns home as landlord of his dying mother’s rundown duplex on Milwaukee’s East Side and accepts a low-key job in a high-profile Downtown firm. His perfectionist wife, Moira, comes from Boston money and possesses a volatile temper and a condescending view of Milwaukee and its residents.
Complicating everything is her inability to become pregnant and Andy’s gradual realization that the past is not always as it seems. Despite falling prey to occasional self-absorption, Andy retains a compelling Midwestern appeal throughout and realistically views present-day Milwaukee with both reverence and disdain. This short book (220 pages) about marriage, mortality and everything in between, also takes unexpected twists near the end.
David Milofsky will discuss his latest novel at Boswell Book Co., 2559 N. Downer Ave., on Monday, Sept. 30, at 7 p.m.
