Hi. It’s been fucking forever since I published anything. Would you believe me if I said I’m writing more than ever? I’m just hoarding prose (and verse!) drafts rn. It’s crazy how not being in school anymore makes me actually want to write (but lack of deadlines makes me never finish anything, oops).
Last month I met my goal of reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s entire novelography, so I’ve put together a little suggested reading order/retrospective on her published works. In case you’re unfamiliar, Moshfegh is a contemporary writer, best known for My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018). It’s the one with the painting of a sad young woman on the cover and hot pink text (the painting, by the way, is ''Portrait of a Young Woman in White'' [circa 1798] by Jacques-Louis David). If you’re on #booktok, #bookstagram, #BookTube, etc., you’ve definitely seen this cover before; it’s the novel-du-jour for young cynics. I want to talk about why Moshfegh resonates with me and so many other readers; the short version is that I think black comedy, abjection, and irredeemable characterization speak to a neglected centre in all of us who feel ugly, mad, queer, and unseen.
Start here: Eileen (2015, Penguin)
Eileen was intended to be approachable: "a mainstream book a normal person could read.” In the linked interview, Moshfegh says, "I wanted to attract the reader who might reach for something commercial to read on an airplane. Something that looked like it would transport the reader to another place, but maybe not teach them anything or challenge them...I thought, if I could get the reader to come with me to this place, and then startle them with some frank realities, then maybe consciousness could shift a little bit.” This bookis less a breath of fresh air and more like when you’re speeding down a country road and a gust of pure horse manure stink comes through the window.
The central mystery of the novel is: how will Eileen’s dismal life be resolved? What happens when a person is this pathetic and perverse? The setup is reminiscent of Gillian Flynn, but the linchpin here is that unlike most contemporary stories about fucked-in-the-head women, her work never resolves itself. (Think The Girl on the Train, which I can’t bring myself to read, but the big twist is that actually she wasn’t evil, she was perfect and a victim of her gaslighting husband. How is that remotely interesting?) Moshfegh’s refusal of resolution is most evident in her short story collection, which I’ll touch on later, but in Eileen we see the beginnings of her signature messiness and trailing, loose tread endings. Something more always happens; the end is never the real end.
Next: My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018, Penguin)
If you’re doing a deep dive, you might as well get the “big book” out of the way. My Year encapsulates the pathologization/medicalization (madicalization, maybe?) of rich white women’s suffering. But it’s also not really about the protagonist at all. Originally this was going to be a novel about 9/11, and it became a portrait of a very angry, disenchanted, dissociative young woman, whose own life isn’t even really about herself. It’s about giving up on yourself, admitting you’re hysterical at the hands of society, and all you want is to be treated with the best drugs money can buy. The unnamed protagonist is the coquette version of the madwoman in the attic (as in Jane Eyre), but she’s complicit, she commits herself. And the reader might be disgusted by her, but against the backdrop of 2000 New York City, we also know the protagonist is right: her world is about to get a lot worse, and make even less sense. To rest for a year as a coping mechanism, the epitome of white female privilege, is capped with the 9/11 terror attacks and the death of her only friend. Capitalism, methodological individualism, pathologization, the pharmaceutical complex, and now the consequences of American’s history of colonialism and international interference have sentenced our protagonist to a “rest” that is not restful, “relaxation” that is just isolation.
Next: McGlue (2014, Fence Books)
In 1851, a drunk sailor wakes up in the hull of the ship where he works, and is accused of killing his best friend. He doesn’t remember anything and believes Johnson to still be alive. Gradually he is forced to sober up as he is arrested and tried for the murder, and he remembers his life and relationship with Johnson bit by bit.
The grim seascape of McGlue glitters with dreams of capital: nearly page-long lists of expensive fabrics, rich foods, and colourful jewels surface in McGlue’s mind, temporary escapes from his life. His real existence is a rum-soaked nightmare. Traumatic memories are only quieted when McGlue bashes his head against the wall, forever reopening an old head wound. His “faggery” and the spectrum of his love for Johnson disturb him. Moshfegh’s sentences are poetic, sparkly little visions with discrete sound and texture. She juxtaposes startling violence with the unspeakable/unspoken feelings in her protagonist’s heart to deepen the tragedy of his life. Poverty condemned McGlue from birth, and he knows it, but knowing the outcome doesn’t ease the pain of the passage.
I’d recommend McGlue as a counterpoint to My Year for juxtaposition’s sake. It might also be interesting because McGlue was her first published novella, so you can trace backwards through Moshfegh’s evolution as a writer.
“I had the feeling, like alone on the road at night, that there was something watching me, something waiting for me to falter, something just hidden in the shadows waiting to pounce. That was God.”
Next: Homesick for Another World (2017, Penguin)
This short story collection is all about perverse dark humour, defamiliarization of the human experience, and the loneliness of existence. Moshfegh’s characters all think they can predict one another, that they know others implicitly at a glance; they are arrogant and judgmental. As these characters rarely seem to observe anything accurate about themselves, it’s surprising that their judgments about others are often correct. No one is ever proven wrong about anyone else, no one “beats the odds” of their circumstance or appearance. It’s this benign evil undercurrent that I think it’s extra poignant in the social media age, even though all these stories predate or ignore social media for the most part. No one is learning any lessons or getting to know anyone else beyond superficialities. The stories tease the reader with resolutions that never come; absent are conclusions, orgasms, deaths, answers, endings. As a whole, the collection is emblematic of Moshfegh’s ethos as a writer: to find meaning, or at least interest, in the abject.
“And the city was rife with garbage. Rife!” she proclaimed. She put down her fork. “Wouldn’t you say, hon?” “I wouldn’t say ‘rife,’” John answered, wiping the corners of his mouth with his cloth napkin. “Fragrant, more like.”
Story highlights: “Slumming,” “An Honest Woman,” “The Beach Boy,” “Nothing Ever Happens Here,” “Dancing in the Moonlight.”
Next: Death in Her Hands (2020, Vintage)
Death in Her Hands is my favourite Moshfegh novel, so it pains me to put it so late on the list, but I think it’s a breath of fresh air after you’ve got the gist of her preceding body of work. Death centres an old woman named Vesta Gul who finds a note in the woods behind her house, alluding to a body being hidden somewhere close by. Eccentric and increasingly isolated, Vesta is a bizarre, witchlike character. She is hateful, but compassionate; judgmental, but tender. This novel illustrates her ill-fated attempt to solve the death in the note. Her logic, her perception of reality, and her social skills all fall apart, and this vulnerable-yet-monstrous woman is reduced to animal by her own investigation. This is a horrifying read about aging as a woman, and while it starts quite slow, I was obsessed by the midway point. The ending is alarming and frightening, and has stuck with me for the past couple years more than any of Moshfegh’s other endings.
Last: Lapvona (2022, Penguin)
I really hated this book when I first read it, but I’ve only come around to it a little bit since I’ve been seeing more Tweets defending it. Lapvona is really, really vile. It’s hard to read. It’s disgusting, it’s perverse, it’s abject, it’s upsetting. The plot is sketchy - it’s set in a medieval village where a cast of characters harm and abuse and curse one another. Don’t even get me started on the grape scene.
What is the argument for Lapvona’s value? Well, I’m compelled by the argument that its sparse and allegorical style alludes to folklore and the fucked up origins of many myths and fairy stories. Read as a fairytale tribute to old-testament-style horror, it makes more sense. It’s also a rewarding read, I think, in the wake of all her previous work. Moshfegh has explored the dregs of contemporary humanity from every angle already. She needed to either kick it up a notch or do something different. In Lapvona she kicks it up ten notches, and does a relatively good job at innovating while remaining loyal to her ethos. It’s not comfortable, not a beach read, and it will probably offend, but I think there is merit to be found in it. I didn’t think so immediately after putting it down - I think I gave it one star - but as time has passed I’m more open to generous interpretation of the text.
Final thoughts:
So what kind of person would like Ottessa Moshfegh? How do you recommend her to someone? She’s a hard sell unless you’re already a 20-something young woman with a master’s degree or a beret. I think the reason she’s exploded in the literary scene is that most people (maybe I’m projecting idk) feel on some level that they are beyond saving. At least I, personally, often feel like I am irredeemable for my loneliness or ugliness or cruelty to others or pride or judgmental nature. You name it, I feel guilty of it. I grew up with two Christian ministers for parents, shame is my default emotion. Moshfegh’s characters are bad. They’re nasty. And I think I, and readers like me, want to know what happens to people like us. Moshfegh puts the worst person imaginable on the page and asks you to follow them through their worst, loneliest moments, and asks us to care. There’s the impetus to empathize. Or, maybe, there’s the comfort of seeing yourself reflected. Or knowing that others read these protagonists, too, and don’t throw the book away. Maybe we all just want to see if there’s a resolution for us. And Moshfegh says, no, there’s nothing - nothing but a sprint into the darkness, to become part of it.
I won’t get into existentialism here but I think Moshfegh’s writing ~empowers~ even people who think we’re shit on God’s shoe. There doesn’t have to be an ending. You just keep making choices and stay open-minded. It’s also funny as hell and finding humour in the worst person you’ve ever met is super cathartic. Maybe it’s not that deep, man. Maybe you’ll be okay.
<3
More of Moshfegh’s short fiction and essays can be found at Granta: Ottessa Moshfegh | Granta
And at the Paris Review: Paris Review - Ottessa Moshfegh (theparisreview.org)