Image via Boswell Books
If you lived in Milwaukee during the summer of 1991, you might not be aware that it was referred to as “Dahmer Summer” but you certainly know what that means. A debut novel with a curious title, The Comfort of Monsters, builds on the local morbid history surrounding the events of that summer—which the Journal Sentinel called “the deadliest...in the history of Milwaukee”—to tell a parallel thriller involving two sisters.
When Peg’s 19-year-old sister disappears in the city, the police are overwhelmed with Dahmer’s heinous crimes and easily overlook one teenager’s vanishing. Thirty years later, the sister who was left behind continues to struggle to recollect what actually occurred and heal from the loss. With her mother now on her deathbed and desperate for answers, the family decides to pay a TV psychic to bring closure to the cold case.
The story that unfolds in The Comfort of Monsters moves back and forth in time as it reveals a devastating and surprising mystery. The Comfort of Monsters is a riveting debut by Milwaukee author Willa C. Richards, who earned her doctorate in English from UW-Milwaukee. Richards is also a graduate of the esteemed Iowa Writers Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. Willa C. Richards will appear in a virtual event sponsored by Boswell Books, 7 p.m. on July 14. She will be in conversation with UWM professor Valerie Laken.
