Ottessa Moshfegh

The main character in the book is definitely fatigued, but I wouldn't argue that this is decadent youth or anything like that.

I almost feel like the book cover for my year of rest and relaxation from Otessa Moshfegh, which has painting of a woman from the Regency era.

So 1810s, 1820s.

She's got her hair up.

George Saunders.

By Otessa, by Otessa Moshfegh or something.

Yes.

[laughs]

Like what?

Well, books like Sally Rooney's Normal People, Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, and of course, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life.

That is a heavy, heavy reading list.

It is extremely heavy, but they all share a common DNA.

Yeah.

But I thought it fell under the category of, like, Otessa Moshfegh, like- Exactly ... weird girl books, and like- And, like, sad and depressing.

Uh, yeah.

Yes.

... is one of my all-time favorites.

Um, I had a great conversation with Ottessa Moshfegh.

Mm.

I had a great conversation with Ocean Vuong.

...

Ottessa Moshfegh.

Yeah.

And it-- I fucking hate that book so, so much.

Um-

And if there was a Hoover book I was gonna read, it would be Verity.

Uh, speaking of Anne Hathaway, Anne Hathaway was in the, I actually don't now remember if it was a movie or, like, a miniseries, the, um, adaptation of, uh, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Ah.

Buckle up.

This is Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh, published in 2020.

Moshfegh is well known for her breakout hit, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and her signature style is deeply unsettling interiority.

Very uncomfortable inside the mind kind of stuff.

We really have.

We started with the playful meta fictional parlor games of A.A. Milne, where murder was a puzzle to be enjoyed.

We watched Ottessa Moshfegh turn that puzzle into a psychological hallucination.

We fell down the interactive multimedia rabbit hole with Marisha Pessl.