In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s novel The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford is one of the year’s most striking debuts, a book both wholly transportive and masterfully told.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“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.”
In her own words, here is Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford:
My debut novel, The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford chronicles the final hours of Rich Milford, the most hated man in Newville, Oklahoma. Told from alternating perspectives by the townsfolk of Newville and the five women who attempt to murder Rich, it explores who gets to claim what stories, whether there’s such a thing as truth, and the lengths people will go to in order to alter or preserve their legacies.
Although I made a vibes playlist for the book early in my drafting process, I’m one of those people who can’t write to most songs because I’ll end up choreographing a music video before a single word lands on the page. I can, however, write to Billie Eilish. There’s something fully immersive and atmospheric about her work that always inspires me, and though I do often end up singing along, I can still maintain my focus on the project at hand. Her music only makes a brief cameo on this playlist, but I want to acknowledge that it has provided much of the background noise, along with Brooklyn’s unique diegetic sounds, for my years of writing and revision of this novel. Below, find my ideal soundtrack for The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford.
“Cha-Cha Slide,” DJ Casper; “The Wobble,” V.I.C; “The Hustle,” Van Mcoy; “Do the Urkel,” Family Matters
Line dances tell us so much about community. They mark insiders and outsiders to cultural knowledge, and Rich Milford is as far outside of Newville’s conventions as one can imagine. Four Wives is structured as one big line-dance tour through the towns, Rich’s life, and over his grave. Thus, the above songs—and more like them—figure into the novel’s pacing and the townsfolks’ joy over Rich’s death.
“Can You Stop the Rain,” Peabo Bryson
Bryson’s song is about the grief of romantic love lost, but the titular Rich, the novel’s antagonist, also grieves many things, most prominently his younger sister, and arguably his parents and the uncle who raised him. Rich is heavily influenced by barometric pressure, and it’s no spoiler to say that his lightning strike at a young age becomes a formative event.
“Blame It on the Rain,” Milli Vanilli
Yes, a theme is forming here. As the song says, “Whatever you do, don’t put the blame on you/ Blame it on the rain, yeah, yeah.” And Rich, who becomes a worse cad than usual under the strain of inclement weather, takes this chorus literally.
Alternates: “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” Ann Peebles; “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” Missy Elliott
“For the Love of Money,” The O’Jays
“Money,” the O’Jays observe, “can drive some people out of their minds.” Rich Milford loves no one more than his sister, Mae, and his fat bankroll. And his lack of honesty about how much money he has directly influences one of his wives’ decision to murder him.
“Torn,” Natalie Imbruglia
“I’m all out of faith…. I’m cold and I am shamed/ lying naked on the floor,” Imbruglia writes in this pop song. Shame figures largely in each of the women who attempts to murder Rich, his first wife Lally no exception. Lally prides herself on respectability, so Rich’s continual degradations of her—including infidelity and sexual and financial humiliation—leave her with what she feels is no choice: To quote Ja Rule, “It’s murda.”
“Criminal,” Fiona Apple
If any of the women in Rich’s life feels especially guilty over her murderous actions, it’s his second “wife,” Sophronia, who worries about what to tell her children when their father ends up dead, presumably by her own hand.
“Petite Mort,” Meshell Ndegeocello
This song’s passionate emphasis on a queer romance suits Georgette, the only wife Rich lets handle his money. Though she is generally levelheaded and somewhat austere, her ultimate vulnerability is most visible when it comes to the secret affair she’s been having with another character in the book.
“I Love You,” Billie Eilish
There are multiple Eilish songs I could have chosen (“My Strange Addiction,” “Hostage,” or “Hailey’s Comet,” for example) to describe Vivianne’s near obsession with Rich. As the last woman to enter the family, she pines over him with a burning but mostly unrequited love that drives her to do wild things. “I can’t escape the way I love you,” Vivianne, like Eilish, might sing, “and I don’t want to.”
“Tears Dry on Their Own,” Amy Winehouse
Vivianne receives so little in the Milford household—barely thrown a bone—that I’m giving her a bonus song. “I don’t understand,” Winehouse sings, “Why do I stress the man/ when there’s so many bigger things at hand…. Even if I stop wanting you/ and perspective pushes through/ I’ll be some next man’s other woman soon.” Vivianne, too, is prone to this pattern.
“I Love the Lord,” Whitney Houston
Alberta, Rich’s lifelong cook, has seen it all, and she wishes she hasn’t. Ever trying to clean the “Milford stink” off of herself, she delights herself in the Lord in both true devotion and defense against the wiles of wicked Rich and his unconventional family.
“The Payback,” James Brown
My favorite James Brown song calls for “the big payback,” “revenge,” and, boy, does Rich Milford meet vengeance.
“Goodbye, Earl,” The Chicks
Very few people mourn Rich’s death. He’s a notorious brawler, a domestic abuser like Earl in this song by The Chicks, and he’s an unsteady, volatile presence in the book and to the people who know him. The townsfolk of Newville, as I mentioned, literally dance on his grave.
“Sweep Around Your Own Front Door,” The Williams Brothers
The townspeople of Newville are not without their own faults. In addition to being incredibly judgmental and sexist, they spend their time spying on Rich Milford and his family. This song encourages nosy people to tidy their own houses before they call out the sins of others, and Newville might take note of it and their own complicity in Rich’s demise.
“Motownphilly,” Boys II Men
This jam reflects Newville, which, in addition to serving as a Greek chorus of sorts, features competing bards. I’d like to imagine that its electric four-part harmonies and acapella riffs would complement the voices of the town’s lamppost singers, the Darker Brothers and the Dixon Boys, who write songs about the Milfords and perform them to passersby.
“Oklahoma,” Rodgers and Hammerstein
My novel is, in part, at its heart an ode to the all-Black towns of Oklahoma, of which there used to be over 50 and now only 13 remain. I wanted to both historicize this important part of the United States and pay homage, as in the book’s dedication, to the archivists who have kept these towns’ stories alive. One of Newville’s major beefs with Rich is that he takes up too much space in their town’s lore. At the end of the day, the townsfolk want to be remembered for their great contributions to a place they deem beautiful and important. As the song says, “Every night my honey lamb and I/ Sit alone and talk/ And watch a hawk/ Makin’ lazy circles in the sky/ We know we belong to the land/ And the land we belong to is grand.”
Nafissa Thompson-Spires is the author of the award-winning, National Book Award longlisted short story collection, Heads of the Colored People.
In addition to a debut novel with Scribner, The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Rich Milford, her young adult debut is forthcoming with Make Me a World (Penguin Random House). She is the recipient of a 2024 United States Artists Grant and a 2019 Whiting Award.
She earned a doctorate in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the 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.