“Just finished My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh: caustic, funny, dark addition to the lineage of unlikeable female protagonists (by Mona Awad, Sheila Heti, Anita Brookner, Jean Rhys, Emily Bronte.+ grandmamas Lady MacBeth + Medea)' -Margaret Atwood via Twitter The thought of sleeping through this particular moment in the world’s history has appeal.” -Dwight Garner, The New York Times Though this novel is set nearly 20 years ago, it feels current. She has a sleepless eye and dispenses observations as if from a toxic eyedropper. Moshfegh writes with so much misanthropic aplomb, however, that she is always a deep pleasure to read. The sentences will be snipped as if the writer has an extra row of teeth. “Because this is a novel by the superabundantly talented Moshfegh-she’s an American writer of Croatian and Iranian descent-we know in advance that it will be cool, strange, aloof and disciplined. Moshfegh’s extraordinary prose soars as it captures her character’s re-engagement.” -Vendela Vida, The New York Times Book Review “Darkly comic and ultimately profound new novel. Watching Moshfegh turn her withering attention to the gleaming absurdities of pre-9/11 New York City, an environment where everyone except the narrator seems beset with delusional optimism, horrifically carefree, feels like eating bright, slick candy-candy that might also poison you.” -Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

She has a freaky and pure way of accessing existential alienation, as if her mind were tapped directly into the sap of some gnarled, secret tree. “Ottessa Moshfegh is easily the most interesting contemporary American writer on the subject of being alive when being alive feels terrible.

'I don't think I'm ever going to get over Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation.' -Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

Ottessa moshfegh short stories