Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in West Virginia hearing about the infamous Quiet Dell murders of 1931, real-life killings of a widow and her three children at the hands of a con man she met through a lonely hearts club.
Phillips learned about the grisly case from her mother, who remembered as a child walking past the “murder garage” where Asta Eicher and her children — 14, 12 and 9 – died, the road nearby lined with cars of souvenir-seekers.
The story of Quiet Dell and the killings that took place there have haunted Jayne Anne Phillips ever since. The novel, Quiet Dell is the result of a lifelong desire to write a novel whose beauty and depth might transcend the darkness of the story.
