Slumming

by Ottessa Moshfegh

Short Story, "Slumming," by Ottessa Moshfegh. Published in The Paris Review No. 211, Winter 2014.
Available to read online at :
http://www.theparisreview.org/fiction...

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

15 pages, Short Story

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella, McGlue. She lives in Southern California.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had Ottessa Moshfegh on my radar ever since Eileen came out. I just haven't found the time (yet) to start reading it. When I noticed this short story was on the list of the 2016 O. Henry Prize Stories, I grabbed the chance to sample her work.

"He wore a cheap white dress shirt and 
blue jeans, brown leather sandals, and a small gold hoop earring in one ear, and when we undressed in the dark in my 
empty upstairs bedroom, me crouching under the sloped ceiling, 
his genitals swung in my face like a fist."

I don't know what it is, but Ottessa Moshfegh has a way to pull you into the story. The writing is sort of intense, nothing violent, just raw reality for the character.

I found myself another great author for my favorites list.

To read the story online (the link in the book description only goes to an excerpt in the Paris Review), you can click here.

Read this for our May Short Story Month Marathon, a personal challenge during which Alex and I will be going through our short story collection in this last week of May. I'm adding a little twist to it by reading books by authors I haven't read from before.

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the raw and gritty town of Alna. The narrator is describing life and her days there for the summer. Nothing much happens, but that is the point, there are no expectations or people to bother with. This is the first writing I’ve read by Ottessa Moshfegh. I enjoy her writing style. She has a way of capturing the mundane and aptly pulling you into the scene.

[Alex ☣ Deranged KittyCat ☣ · Rating 2 out of 5]

You’d think that, sitting there, oozing slowly toward death 
with every breath, they’d all go out of their minds. But no—they 
were too dumb for insanity.

Let me just say that I have no idea what's the purpose of this story. Nothing really happens. It's just this middle-aged (or close by) woman who spends her summers in a poor small town, having sandwiches and doing light drugs...



*Read this for our May Short Story Month Marathon, a personal challenge during which Sandra and I will be going through our short story collection.

[Shwan Fraidoon Abdulqader · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great town

[Alice Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are so weird but fun lol

[manicpixie.bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

alna is a vibeeee

[Sareda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think its about a very judgemental woman who lives in this poor, country town, (It sounds like Pittsfield, MA or North Adams) and thinks she is better than everyone... but really is more messed up than everyone in the town.

She meets this guy who is so below mediocre to her and thinks that HE is so dumb in general, and also for thinking he is so much smarter than everyone. But here she is, judging everyone, people watching, never talking to anyone, not knowing any of her neighbors, referring to people who are addicts as "zombies". There is a girl who she thinks is going to be destined for nothingness, who is having a little boy (who she actually has clean her house while she is 9 months pregnant, and doesn't even help when she is about to give birth)... yet at the end of the story, she is just laying alone by herself, getting high on dope or meth. Alone. Hers is the life that is worse off.

She is the dumb one. And she lives life at arms length from everyone else so she will never understand basic things, like why the crystal is bad. Why the "zombies" don't look at her above the chest or why she feels they see through the act she puts on as she takes the dope. Why they roll their eyes at her and what they probably think about her.

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pourquoi vos personnages sont-ils tous des sociopathes? A thread

[cristiianclemente · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️.25/5

[Yvette G · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this one, it’s just about Alna who is perfectly satisfied “slumming” it in some shitty little town. She strives for nothing better.

[Struan Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

« I couldn’t handle real oblivion. I just wanted a vacation. »

I want to go to Alna. I imagine it’s like if the town in sharp objects was the neighboring town to that of the dressmaker.