Morristown Author Brings Mystery to Library

It isn’t hard for first time author Jenny Milchman, coming to Morristown & Morris Township Library for a unique reading and author talk event Dec. 8 at 2 p.m., to pinpoint the biggest challenge in writing her mystery book.

“Finding a publisher for it,” Milchman said of the thriller, which took 13 years to get published but was nearly a lifetime in the making.

Milchman had been on a nationwide book tour all this year in support of her recently-published Cover of Snow and is coming back to her home here in Morristown to do a reading at her home library.  The novel, according to Milchman, was inspired in part by an experience she had as a child. Milchman’s babysitter confessed to her one night that he was planning to kill himself.  By telling her parents when they returned, the babysitter was found, and saved.

“That experience was formative,” Milchman said. “In years to come I felt terrified that the decision had been left in my eight-year-old hands.”

In Cover of Snow, Nora Hamilton wakes to find her policeman husband missing from their bed. Minutes later, Nora discovers his body, a victim of suicide. He left no note or sign of why he’d take his own life, and the grieving wife wants answers. Her search in an insular, frigid mountain town that is determined to keep its deadly secrets buried proves more and more difficult as she meets resistance from her husband’s friends, partner, and his own mother.

Milchman eventually started a career as a psychotherapist, helping people professionally find a way out of their desperation. And while her expert background influences her writing, so does the work of literary greats such as Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Nancy Pickard, who describes Milchman’s debut as “absorbing from start to finish.”

Milchman said another driving force behind her debut novel came from “a question that grabbed me around the throat and wouldn’t let go.” The question was what would make a good man do the worst thing he could possibly do to his wife?

“Of course, I had to first figure out what the ‘worst thing’ would be.” Milchman said.

Milchman said that the real mystery in the book is not death of her protagonist’s spouse.

“I think the real mystery was not why my heroine’s husband died, but who he was, and who the two of them were together,” Milchman said. “Every marriage is different, and we never really know what’s going on inside another couple’s inner life together. Marriage is the biggest mystery of all.”

While the book’s release is a dream come true for Milchman, she is quick to acknowledge the support system that allowed her to persevere. Milchman considers them all inspirations to her work.

“My parents taught me to follow a dream and my husband wouldn’t let me give up,” Milchman said. “And my third grade daughter comes up with images like ‘the wind herding clouds across the sky.’”

The program is supported through funding from the Friends of the Morristown & Morris Township Library and refreshments will be served.