Mrs. Wiggins

Maggie Wiggins seems to have the picture-perfect life, but beneath the neat facade is a mess of secrets and lies. Her husband is the gay son of a beloved local preacher, and their marriage of convenience serves to conceal his sexuality and protect her after she suffered years of sexual abuse. Amid the brutalities of Jim Crow laws in Lexington, Alabama, Maggie persists in hiding her truths to stay safe. But when her only son's life is threatened, she decides that she has had enough and takes matters into her own hands, moving beyond deceitful to deadly. Set from 1917 to 1939, Monroe's latest work of historical fiction, following Across the Way (2020), instantly pulls readers into Maggie's complicated world of danger, identity, and injustice. Her willingness to do anything for her loved ones is relatable, and the emboldening influence of her desperation and the incremental gravity of her deceptiveness heighten the narrative's mesmerizing effect. Although scenes of rape and sexual abuse shape Monroe's unflinching dramatization of difficult but important themes of sexuality, sexual trauma, and survival, they do not weigh down the story, but rather enrich its resonance.