The Comfort of Monsters: A Novel

Written by Willa C. Richards

Narrated by Stacey Glemboski

""A riveting page-turner that begs to be read quickly, compulsively. But page by page, this electrifying debut by Willa Richards weaves an increasingly complicated and dark tale of guilt, fury, and the danger of building stories on that shakiest of foundations, memory."" —Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling author of Valentine

Set in Milwaukee during the “Dahmer summer” of 1991, a remarkable debut novel for fans of Mary Gaitskill and Gillian Flynn about two sisters—one who disappears, and one who is left to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.

In the summer of 1991, a teenage girl named Dee McBride vanished in the city of Milwaukee. Nearly thirty years later, her sister, Peg, is still haunted by her sister's disappearance. Their mother, on her deathbed, is desperate to find out what happened to Dee so the family hires a psychic to help find Dee’s body and bring them some semblance of peace. 

The appearance of the psychic plunges Peg back to the past, to those final carefree months when she last saw Dee—the summer the Journal Sentinel called “the deadliest . . . in the history of Milwaukee.” Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s heinous crimes dominated the headlines and overwhelmed local law enforcement. The disappearance of one girl was easily overlooked.

Peg’s hazy recollections are far from easy for her to interpret, assess, or even keep clear in her mind. And now digging deep into her memory raises doubts and difficult—even terrifying—questions. Was there anything Peg could have done to prevent Dee’s disappearance? Who was really to blame for the family's loss? How often are our memories altered by the very act of voicing them? And what does it mean to bear witness in a world where even our own stories are inherently suspect?

A heartbreaking page-turner, Willa C. Richards’s novel is the story of a broken family looking for answers in the face of the unknown, and asks us to reconsider the power and truth of memory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jul 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9780063053052

Willa C. Richards

Willa C. Richards is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review and she is a recipient of a PEN/Robert J Dau prize for Emerging Writers. 

Reviews for The Comfort of Monsters

[andy5185 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Couldn’t put this down once I started it.

[Amy Watson · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Just all over the place, no resolution. Wanted to stop reading several times but hoped it would get better. It didn't. Sorry ?.

[Sandra Gurvis · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well written but so depressing and negative that it felt like torture towards the end. Not recommended unless you like stories that completely lack hope and illumination. I feel for the character but eventually her endless self pity and looping thoughts made me want to get rid of this Debbie Downer of a book

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

He drove us back to Ma's, and on the highway ramps, we passed over the police department and over the serial killer in his cell too. The downtown fell away from the highway as we headed west, away from the breweries and the factories churning out chocolate, and cheese, and sad, sad lives. Peter kept his eyes on the road.In July, 1991, Peg's sister disappears. It's not a great time to be a missing person in Milwaukee given that the media have descended on the city and the police department is busy with the Jeffrey Dahmer case. It doesn't help that the detective assigned to the case is not that interested. Almost thirty years later, Peg's mother wants to hire a psychic to find her daughter's body. Peg is hoping she can finally get someone to look at the man she knows is responsible. This novel is structured like a run-of-the-mill thriller, but there's more going on than finding out what happened. Richards is looking at how women are allowed to move through the world and which people get attention when they disappear, a topic highly relevant in these days when a missing social influencer, blonde, young and pretty, takes all the attention to the point where even the family of Gabrielle Petito point out that there are missing women who never rate a single mention. In this case, the first missing people who are ignored are the young, non-white gay men preyed upon by Dahmer, where the only people who care are family and friends. And then Peg's sister, caught in the middle of having too messy a life to matter and a police officer who isn't doing his job. Milwaukee is vividly rendered here -- it's wonderful when novels are published that aren't set in New York, London or any of the usual places. If you enjoyed Liz Moore's Long, Bright River, you'll enjoy this one.