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La mort entre ses mains
Alors qu’elle promène son chien dans une forêt reculée, Vesta Gul tombe sur un message écrit à la main, délicatement maintenu au sol par des cailloux. « Elle s’appelait Magda. Personne ne saura jamais qui l’a tuée. Ce n’est pas moi. Voici son cadavre. » Autour d’elle, des arbres, le bruissement des feuilles, mais nulle trace d’un crime.
Vesta n’a bientôt plus qu’une obsession : résoudre ce mystère. Qui était Magda ? Que lui est-il arrivé ? Et où est son cadavre ? Avec le peu d’indices dont elle dispose, Vesta dresse une liste des suspects et de leurs mobiles. À mesure que son enquête avance, les dissonances bizarres s’accumulent, peut-être liées aux zones d’ombre de son propre passé…
Mélange singulier de polar, de suspense et de comédie grinçante, le nouveau roman d'Ottessa Moshfegh dévoile subtilement les mécanismes d'une psyché en proie à l'obsession,qui ne sont peut-être pas si différents de ceux qui président à l'élaboration de toute histoire.
Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Clément Baude
« Ottessa Moshfegh est sans conteste l’auteure américaine contemporaine la plus intéressante. » The New Yorker
« Ottessa Moshfegh écrit superbement… Elle peut tout faire. » The New York Times
À propos de Mon année de repos et de détente :
« Électrisant » Le Monde des Livres
« La sensation de la rentrée » Les Inrocks
« La petite bombe de la rentrée » Grazia
« La it-girl de la littérature américaine » Vanity Fair
« Houellebecq au féminin » Beigbeder, Le Masque et la plume
Vesta n’a bientôt plus qu’une obsession : résoudre ce mystère. Qui était Magda ? Que lui est-il arrivé ? Et où est son cadavre ? Avec le peu d’indices dont elle dispose, Vesta dresse une liste des suspects et de leurs mobiles. À mesure que son enquête avance, les dissonances bizarres s’accumulent, peut-être liées aux zones d’ombre de son propre passé…
Mélange singulier de polar, de suspense et de comédie grinçante, le nouveau roman d'Ottessa Moshfegh dévoile subtilement les mécanismes d'une psyché en proie à l'obsession,qui ne sont peut-être pas si différents de ceux qui président à l'élaboration de toute histoire.
Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Clément Baude
« Ottessa Moshfegh est sans conteste l’auteure américaine contemporaine la plus intéressante. » The New Yorker
« Ottessa Moshfegh écrit superbement… Elle peut tout faire. » The New York Times
À propos de Mon année de repos et de détente :
« Électrisant » Le Monde des Livres
« La sensation de la rentrée » Les Inrocks
« La petite bombe de la rentrée » Grazia
« La it-girl de la littérature américaine » Vanity Fair
« Houellebecq au féminin » Beigbeder, Le Masque et la plume
260 pages, Paperback
First published June 23, 2020
3606 people are currently reading
115171 people want to read
About the author
Ottessa Moshfegh
41 books24.1k followersOttessa 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 9,532 reviews
January 15, 2020
I have to be honest here and admit that I just didn't get this book. Ottessa Moshfegh is so insanely talented as a writer but this book was utterly pointless.
We have a 72 year old woman (a widow) that lives in almost complete solitude with her dog, Charlie, in a cabin on a lake. While out walking she finds a note:
"Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body."
However, there is no body and Vesta becomes completely obsessed in solving the mystery of Magda. She creates a complete back story on Magda, who she is, what she was like, to how her death came to be. Going as so far as meeting strangers and giving them roles in her narrative. Essentially this is a story being told within a story. We all know that Ottessa embraces the oddball, eccentric, and unlikable characters quite well and she shines here with our dear Vesta.
She is also able to create a claustrophobic atmosphere and there are a couple downright creepy scenes but I needed more than that to enjoy this.
Word of warning: This woman HATES fat people and it's mentioned over and over and over again. There is also killing of an animal which I personally could have lived without reading.
I have read the ending twice now and I am still trying to figure out the point. I hate finishing a book and thinking that it was a complete waste of time but sadly that is how I feel here. Maybe this is a meditation on loneliness and unfulfilled desires due to a domineering and unfaithful husband. I don't know. Eileen will remain a favorite of mine but I have yet to read anything else by this author that satisfies me even though I love her writing style. 2 stars!
Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Press for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
We have a 72 year old woman (a widow) that lives in almost complete solitude with her dog, Charlie, in a cabin on a lake. While out walking she finds a note:
"Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body."
However, there is no body and Vesta becomes completely obsessed in solving the mystery of Magda. She creates a complete back story on Magda, who she is, what she was like, to how her death came to be. Going as so far as meeting strangers and giving them roles in her narrative. Essentially this is a story being told within a story. We all know that Ottessa embraces the oddball, eccentric, and unlikable characters quite well and she shines here with our dear Vesta.
She is also able to create a claustrophobic atmosphere and there are a couple downright creepy scenes but I needed more than that to enjoy this.
Word of warning: This woman HATES fat people and it's mentioned over and over and over again. There is also killing of an animal which I personally could have lived without reading.
I have read the ending twice now and I am still trying to figure out the point. I hate finishing a book and thinking that it was a complete waste of time but sadly that is how I feel here. Maybe this is a meditation on loneliness and unfulfilled desires due to a domineering and unfaithful husband. I don't know. Eileen will remain a favorite of mine but I have yet to read anything else by this author that satisfies me even though I love her writing style. 2 stars!
Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Press for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
June 30, 2020
Is there nothing this woman can't do?
Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh's newest novel, takes the cozy mystery genre and stands it on its head. Takes what Agatha Christie and her lot do so well, and goes six feet under that. Deeply examining life, death, grief. Regrets, resentment, anger. All that uncomfortable stuff.
The book opens with a cryptic note found in the woods by a 72-year-old woman, Vesta, walking her dog: Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Vesta, a widow who is living in a cabin in a very secluded area, becomes obsessed. Who is this Magda? Where is she? How did she die? Her imagination runs amok.
We readers wonder about Magda, too. We do. But the real mystery of this book is whether our narrator is losing her mind. She seems unstable from the first, so the question isn't "is this narrator unreliable?" It's more like "will this narrator turn out to be reliable after all?" We desperately hope so.
Fans of Moshfegh who have already read Booker-nominated Eileen will find this narrator somewhat familiar. Both stories are told from the point of view of an older woman looking back at her younger, tougher days. Both women have gained perspective and a certain wisdom about life.
Another comparison can be made. Poetry by William Blake and a rural setting in which an older, single, animal-loving woman is fighting the patriarchy will bring to mind Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
The writing is gorgeously muscular, experienced. Completely character driven, relentlessly interior, fascinating and clever, Moshfegh compels you through this quasi-mystery by injecting tension and her trademark bleakness. This novel captures the insanity of loneliness in a murky, brilliant snarl.
(I should mention, if you're waiting for someone to shit in the middle of the room or keep a dead rodent in the glovebox of their car, you might be disappointed. It's the least controversial of her books thus far, which could be a letdown for those craving that kick in the crotch we've come to expect from dear Ms. Moshfegh.)
And then, after you think about Vesta, and the mystery, and her grief... there lurks a deeper meta-layer. While pondering the circumstances of Magda's death, Vesta behaves much like a writer, coming up with a list of suspects, character traits, motives, background, setting. She stays up late writing in notebooks. How terribly lonely that whole process is. Writing. The creating of world and story, populating a once empty reality, venturing into a weird, untraversed headspace. It's solitary. It's crazy making. It's self-defeating. It nearly kills you. But if you're good, you'll find the jugular, that sticky, bloody life source.
Was there any doubt? She's so good. She found it again.
Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh's newest novel, takes the cozy mystery genre and stands it on its head. Takes what Agatha Christie and her lot do so well, and goes six feet under that. Deeply examining life, death, grief. Regrets, resentment, anger. All that uncomfortable stuff.
The book opens with a cryptic note found in the woods by a 72-year-old woman, Vesta, walking her dog: Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Vesta, a widow who is living in a cabin in a very secluded area, becomes obsessed. Who is this Magda? Where is she? How did she die? Her imagination runs amok.
We readers wonder about Magda, too. We do. But the real mystery of this book is whether our narrator is losing her mind. She seems unstable from the first, so the question isn't "is this narrator unreliable?" It's more like "will this narrator turn out to be reliable after all?" We desperately hope so.
Fans of Moshfegh who have already read Booker-nominated Eileen will find this narrator somewhat familiar. Both stories are told from the point of view of an older woman looking back at her younger, tougher days. Both women have gained perspective and a certain wisdom about life.
Another comparison can be made. Poetry by William Blake and a rural setting in which an older, single, animal-loving woman is fighting the patriarchy will bring to mind Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
The writing is gorgeously muscular, experienced. Completely character driven, relentlessly interior, fascinating and clever, Moshfegh compels you through this quasi-mystery by injecting tension and her trademark bleakness. This novel captures the insanity of loneliness in a murky, brilliant snarl.
(I should mention, if you're waiting for someone to shit in the middle of the room or keep a dead rodent in the glovebox of their car, you might be disappointed. It's the least controversial of her books thus far, which could be a letdown for those craving that kick in the crotch we've come to expect from dear Ms. Moshfegh.)
And then, after you think about Vesta, and the mystery, and her grief... there lurks a deeper meta-layer. While pondering the circumstances of Magda's death, Vesta behaves much like a writer, coming up with a list of suspects, character traits, motives, background, setting. She stays up late writing in notebooks. How terribly lonely that whole process is. Writing. The creating of world and story, populating a once empty reality, venturing into a weird, untraversed headspace. It's solitary. It's crazy making. It's self-defeating. It nearly kills you. But if you're good, you'll find the jugular, that sticky, bloody life source.
Was there any doubt? She's so good. She found it again.
August 25, 2020
I reviewed this for Sublime Horror. Read the full review here: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh review – an easier book to admire than enjoy
---
(3.5) Initially, I thought Ottessa Moshfegh was toning down her usual style with what seems like a deliberately bland narrative voice. Vesta is a widow in her seventies who's recently moved to a lakeside cabin in non-specific small-town America. One morning, while taking her beloved dog Charlie for a walk, she finds a strange note on the ground. It reads: 'Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body.' But there is no body. While Vesta is instantly obsessed with the 'mystery', she makes no attempt to find out whether anyone named Magda has been reported missing in the local area. Instead, she finds a 'character profile questionnaire' on a webpage titled 'Top Tips for Mystery Writers', and bases her investigation on that.
Vesta's narrative is an infinite-scroll feed of her fantasies and imaginings. She constructs a whole world around her make-believe Magda, including several lovers. Most of her interactions with people are imagined, too; the voice of her late husband Walter often intrudes on her thoughts. Anyone who read My Year of Rest and Relaxation will be unsurprised to meet another character who regards most everyone she encounters with contempt: judging their looks, making assumptions about their lives, thinking about how poised and beautiful she is in comparison. (A Moshfegh protagonist who hates fat people? Groundbreaking.) Only her fictional Magda, whom she sometimes imagines as a daughter, escapes this judgement.
I deliberately read this directly after Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; several early reviews have noted the resemblance between the two novels. Both have an elderly female protagonist, a dog-lover, who lives alone, likes to wander through the woods, and invents nicknames for the people she encounters. There are characters of Eastern European origin and even references to the poetry of William Blake. I can't say I know what to make of these similarities – they seem prominent enough to be intentional, but to what end? Perhaps it's just part of Moshfegh's literary trickery, a deliberate attempt to invoke the spectre of plagiarism/unoriginality within a novel that is, after all, a closed, self-referential loop.
There's a reference to The Yellow Wall-Paper in here, too, and probably others I missed. Vesta made me think about other novels with female protagonists whose imaginations wildly outstrip reality: Katie Kitamura's A Separation, Anita Brookner's Undue Influence, Sara Gran's Come Closer. Towards the end, the sense of escalating dread and loss of control reminded me strongly of I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
The blurb calls Death in Her Hands 'a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense'; the key word in that sentence is 'metaphysical'. This story is not what it seems. It's not going where you think it's going.
What Moshfegh is doing here is very clever. The title, for example, is genius: it's an inspired choice to lift this particular phrase from the book – I'd never have guessed what it was actually describing – but it's also a clue, a key, and an injoke for the enjoyment of those who have unlocked it. The problem is that it takes so long to reach the point where things like this are clear. For so much of the book, I was just bored and annoyed by Vesta, wanting to get at the meat of the plot instead of reading page after page of a small-minded character's weird fantasies. Eventually, I understood that this is exactly the point, which, again, is clever, but not necessarily very pleasurable. Making Vesta's account so determinedly dull also blunts its quotability, something I've always thought of as one of the author's main strengths.
But I get the impression that this – putting a neat narrative trick above the reader's enjoyment of the story – is typically Moshfeghian. The joke's on me, I suppose, for taking Vesta's 'murder mystery' at face value. It's just hard to love a book when it feels like the whole thing amounts to the author having a laugh at your expense.
I think I'm destined to come away from Ottessa Moshfegh's books thinking 'that was really interesting, but I didn't particularly like it'. As with My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I appreciated it a lot more once I had finished it, stepped back, and fully understood what it was aiming for. I can see now that all the signs were there from the start, and I can see how rereading it might be a satisfying experience. Yet I would never want to reread it. Death in Her Hands works as a concept; it is frustrating as a novel.
I received an advance review copy of Death in Her Hands from the publisher through NetGalley.
TinyLetter
---
(3.5) Initially, I thought Ottessa Moshfegh was toning down her usual style with what seems like a deliberately bland narrative voice. Vesta is a widow in her seventies who's recently moved to a lakeside cabin in non-specific small-town America. One morning, while taking her beloved dog Charlie for a walk, she finds a strange note on the ground. It reads: 'Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body.' But there is no body. While Vesta is instantly obsessed with the 'mystery', she makes no attempt to find out whether anyone named Magda has been reported missing in the local area. Instead, she finds a 'character profile questionnaire' on a webpage titled 'Top Tips for Mystery Writers', and bases her investigation on that.
Vesta's narrative is an infinite-scroll feed of her fantasies and imaginings. She constructs a whole world around her make-believe Magda, including several lovers. Most of her interactions with people are imagined, too; the voice of her late husband Walter often intrudes on her thoughts. Anyone who read My Year of Rest and Relaxation will be unsurprised to meet another character who regards most everyone she encounters with contempt: judging their looks, making assumptions about their lives, thinking about how poised and beautiful she is in comparison. (A Moshfegh protagonist who hates fat people? Groundbreaking.) Only her fictional Magda, whom she sometimes imagines as a daughter, escapes this judgement.
I deliberately read this directly after Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; several early reviews have noted the resemblance between the two novels. Both have an elderly female protagonist, a dog-lover, who lives alone, likes to wander through the woods, and invents nicknames for the people she encounters. There are characters of Eastern European origin and even references to the poetry of William Blake. I can't say I know what to make of these similarities – they seem prominent enough to be intentional, but to what end? Perhaps it's just part of Moshfegh's literary trickery, a deliberate attempt to invoke the spectre of plagiarism/unoriginality within a novel that is, after all, a closed, self-referential loop.
There's a reference to The Yellow Wall-Paper in here, too, and probably others I missed. Vesta made me think about other novels with female protagonists whose imaginations wildly outstrip reality: Katie Kitamura's A Separation, Anita Brookner's Undue Influence, Sara Gran's Come Closer. Towards the end, the sense of escalating dread and loss of control reminded me strongly of I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
The blurb calls Death in Her Hands 'a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense'; the key word in that sentence is 'metaphysical'. This story is not what it seems. It's not going where you think it's going.
What Moshfegh is doing here is very clever. The title, for example, is genius: it's an inspired choice to lift this particular phrase from the book – I'd never have guessed what it was actually describing – but it's also a clue, a key, and an injoke for the enjoyment of those who have unlocked it. The problem is that it takes so long to reach the point where things like this are clear. For so much of the book, I was just bored and annoyed by Vesta, wanting to get at the meat of the plot instead of reading page after page of a small-minded character's weird fantasies. Eventually, I understood that this is exactly the point, which, again, is clever, but not necessarily very pleasurable. Making Vesta's account so determinedly dull also blunts its quotability, something I've always thought of as one of the author's main strengths.
But I get the impression that this – putting a neat narrative trick above the reader's enjoyment of the story – is typically Moshfeghian. The joke's on me, I suppose, for taking Vesta's 'murder mystery' at face value. It's just hard to love a book when it feels like the whole thing amounts to the author having a laugh at your expense.
I think I'm destined to come away from Ottessa Moshfegh's books thinking 'that was really interesting, but I didn't particularly like it'. As with My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I appreciated it a lot more once I had finished it, stepped back, and fully understood what it was aiming for. I can see now that all the signs were there from the start, and I can see how rereading it might be a satisfying experience. Yet I would never want to reread it. Death in Her Hands works as a concept; it is frustrating as a novel.
I received an advance review copy of Death in Her Hands from the publisher through NetGalley.
TinyLetter
May 7, 2020
While the concept of this story sounded right up my alley, it left much to be desired because the entire novel– that I sped through because it is gripping despite its lack of plot– is simply Vesta’s stream of consciousness as she ponders who Magda was, who killed her, what her past was like, etc.
From the moment Vesta finds this note, there is no actual progression of the plot from there, onwards. There is no real mystery or overlying darkness to this story that is gripping but makes one wonder why they wasted their time reading a story that has no actual plot. We are simply stuck in Vesta’s mind as she loses her grip on reality and she comes to terms with the fact that she has no real company to hold onto and she has lived a safe life full of regrets, but… that’s it.
I wish I could have connected with the story or the protagonist, more. I wish there was an actual development to the plot after she stumbles upon this note, but instead, we are forced to follow along with Vesta’s sporadic internal monologue only to be served a quickly wrapped up ending that made me wonder why I picked this book up in the first place. In short, the concept/synopsis was more interesting than the book itself, which let me down, a lot.
CONTENT WARNING: Death of an animal, fatphobia
SEE MORE OF MY REVIEWS AT STORIESFORCOFFEE.COM
From the moment Vesta finds this note, there is no actual progression of the plot from there, onwards. There is no real mystery or overlying darkness to this story that is gripping but makes one wonder why they wasted their time reading a story that has no actual plot. We are simply stuck in Vesta’s mind as she loses her grip on reality and she comes to terms with the fact that she has no real company to hold onto and she has lived a safe life full of regrets, but… that’s it.
I wish I could have connected with the story or the protagonist, more. I wish there was an actual development to the plot after she stumbles upon this note, but instead, we are forced to follow along with Vesta’s sporadic internal monologue only to be served a quickly wrapped up ending that made me wonder why I picked this book up in the first place. In short, the concept/synopsis was more interesting than the book itself, which let me down, a lot.
CONTENT WARNING: Death of an animal, fatphobia
SEE MORE OF MY REVIEWS AT STORIESFORCOFFEE.COM
January 11, 2025
ending pmo so bad
August 1, 2025
nothing says fall like cozying up with a completely unhinged novel. (it's unseasonably cool today, so let me pretend it's truly autumn.)
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
i throw the term "one of a kind" out so often i don't even know how to handle myself when i'm confronted with something truly one of a kind.
let's give this process a try:
1) say sorry to ottessa moshfegh for the injustice i have done her by not saving a term for exclusive use on this book
2) four star this
3) tell all of you it's unlike anything else, and you may not like it but i can guarantee you haven't read it before in any way
4) move along and forget, as i do all my transgressions
bottom line: moshfegh hive wins again.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
i throw the term "one of a kind" out so often i don't even know how to handle myself when i'm confronted with something truly one of a kind.
let's give this process a try:
1) say sorry to ottessa moshfegh for the injustice i have done her by not saving a term for exclusive use on this book
2) four star this
3) tell all of you it's unlike anything else, and you may not like it but i can guarantee you haven't read it before in any way
4) move along and forget, as i do all my transgressions
bottom line: moshfegh hive wins again.
July 27, 2020
Despite the title, I somehow did not expect to read a book dealing with a murder of a woman, not to mention a capture of a culprit. For me, the story of a 72-year-old widow who moved to a small town of Levant, New England, and lives in a modest cabin with a dog, Charlie, whom she gave a forever home, is a story of loneliness and bitterness she suffered in her life. The note found during one of the walks with Charlie becomes the opening to her speculations on whether there wasreally a murder committed, and who the murderer is. She spends her days observing the people around and creating the story of Magda, giving her life and identity.
Vesta Gul is not a character you come to like, however, perhaps owing to a good narration by Ann Marie Lee, I felt for her at many moments as she seems to have had a rather unhappy marriage and now she lives in an environment that she finds unfriendly, to say the least. On the other hand, she keeps the distance and is not a senior citizen who seeks to blend in the neighbourhood. I suspect she likes her isolation even if she does not realize that as it gives her independence of which she was deprived in the past. Vesta is an unreliable narrator, my favourite kind, hence my warm feelings towards her.
Vesta Gul is not a character you come to like, however, perhaps owing to a good narration by Ann Marie Lee, I felt for her at many moments as she seems to have had a rather unhappy marriage and now she lives in an environment that she finds unfriendly, to say the least. On the other hand, she keeps the distance and is not a senior citizen who seeks to blend in the neighbourhood. I suspect she likes her isolation even if she does not realize that as it gives her independence of which she was deprived in the past. Vesta is an unreliable narrator, my favourite kind, hence my warm feelings towards her.
September 11, 2020
"Things might be theoretical, that was true. I may be imagining it all, but it still hurt. It was still sad to lose someone you loved."
Vesta is a 72 year old, dog-owning loner. She's recently moved cross-country after the death of her husband. One day on a walk in the woods she stumbles upon a note: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body."
Except, there is no dead body present. With this incident, Vesta sets out on a murder mystery, more metaphysical than literal, perhaps, subverting the genre and probing at grand themes of loneliness, grief and finding solace in the face of death.
Moshfegh is without a doubt a phenomenal writer. I could see that when I first read her novel Eileen, though it took me a second reading to truly understand. Followed by her short stories and then second novel which was widely praised, Moshfegh made a name for herself as a writer focused on the fringes, on the characters just left of center, the losers and weirdos, the messed-ups.
But I think her fascination with these characters goes deeper than quirks. In her works she is searching for consolation. Isn't that what we all seek? In life? In the novels we read? In the people we love? We want, more than anything, not to be alone. And not only that, but to be loved in return—authentically, wholly, without pretense.
Vesta is grappling with this, just as much as Eileen or the unnamed narrator of My Year, or any of Moshfegh's other protagonists. What does life look like after you've lost someone you loved? What happens when your memory of that person isn't as shiny and beautiful as you'd have hoped? Moshfegh so cleverly allows Vesta to wrestle with this issue outside of herself, in attempting to solve Magda's alleged murder. While so much of the events of this book take place in the 'mindspace' as Vesta puts it, there is even more going on in the background.
Swimming through these murky waters may not be for every reader. Vesta can be aloof and naive; I'd be tempted to say she even goes as far as to be deluded, if I didn't have a soft spot for her. Clearly many didn't resonate with this work (my GR friends' average rating is 2.9. Ouch), and that's fine. That's what makes reading so special. Like Vesta, stumbling upon a secret note, a novel, that feels like it's written just for you. Something to keep for yourself, to journey through alone, and find that elusive connection we all seek. Recognition in something greater, something outside of yourself, something good.
Vesta is a 72 year old, dog-owning loner. She's recently moved cross-country after the death of her husband. One day on a walk in the woods she stumbles upon a note: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body."
Except, there is no dead body present. With this incident, Vesta sets out on a murder mystery, more metaphysical than literal, perhaps, subverting the genre and probing at grand themes of loneliness, grief and finding solace in the face of death.
Moshfegh is without a doubt a phenomenal writer. I could see that when I first read her novel Eileen, though it took me a second reading to truly understand. Followed by her short stories and then second novel which was widely praised, Moshfegh made a name for herself as a writer focused on the fringes, on the characters just left of center, the losers and weirdos, the messed-ups.
But I think her fascination with these characters goes deeper than quirks. In her works she is searching for consolation. Isn't that what we all seek? In life? In the novels we read? In the people we love? We want, more than anything, not to be alone. And not only that, but to be loved in return—authentically, wholly, without pretense.
Vesta is grappling with this, just as much as Eileen or the unnamed narrator of My Year, or any of Moshfegh's other protagonists. What does life look like after you've lost someone you loved? What happens when your memory of that person isn't as shiny and beautiful as you'd have hoped? Moshfegh so cleverly allows Vesta to wrestle with this issue outside of herself, in attempting to solve Magda's alleged murder. While so much of the events of this book take place in the 'mindspace' as Vesta puts it, there is even more going on in the background.
Swimming through these murky waters may not be for every reader. Vesta can be aloof and naive; I'd be tempted to say she even goes as far as to be deluded, if I didn't have a soft spot for her. Clearly many didn't resonate with this work (my GR friends' average rating is 2.9. Ouch), and that's fine. That's what makes reading so special. Like Vesta, stumbling upon a secret note, a novel, that feels like it's written just for you. Something to keep for yourself, to journey through alone, and find that elusive connection we all seek. Recognition in something greater, something outside of yourself, something good.
May 27, 2022
4.5
death in her hands places the reader solely in the mind of vesta gul, a 72 year old widow who just moved alone to a small cabin with her dog. while on a morning walk in the woods, vesta stumbles upon a handwritten note: “her name was madga. nobody will ever know who killed her. it wasn’t me. here is her dead body.” but with no body and no further details, vesta is left to embark on the task of solving the murder mystery herself - or perhaps, the task of figuring out if there is even a mystery to solve at all.
what follows is a claustrophobic, unsettling novel full of metaphysical pondering. moshfegh uses death in her hands to dismantle the form of a murder mystery, pulling at the threads in order to examine what it really means to write a novel. moshfegh’s striking talent at characterisation is particularly prevalent with vesta, whose erratic and unreliable inner monologue feels increasingly hallucinogenic as the book continues, making the reader feel complicit in her madness.
not only is the novel an exploration of art and its process, but it’s also a fascinating meditation on loneliness and ageing. arguably, vesta’s wayward speculation about madga is a symptom of the miserable marriage and belittlement that she endured for most of her life. magda is a vehicle which vesta uses to consider her own life and regrets, imagining the unfolding of madga’s life as a way to reminisce and reconfigure what her own could’ve been. the fictive narrative vesta creates seemingly derives from her own desolation and a yearning for a better story for herself, perhaps serving as a rumination on the intentions of a novelist. stepping away from the ‘murder mystery’ that the novel is wrapped up in, the book very much feels like vesta wrenching back control after living so long without it - essentially, a woman taking back control of her own narrative.
i read the majority of this on the train, and i truly think this book is best consumed in 1 or 2 sittings in order to fully be immersed in the unsettling, frenzied journey. this won’t be for everyone, but if you want a book where you’re already questioning what just happened on the previous page as you’re flipping to the next one, then maybe it’s for you.
death in her hands places the reader solely in the mind of vesta gul, a 72 year old widow who just moved alone to a small cabin with her dog. while on a morning walk in the woods, vesta stumbles upon a handwritten note: “her name was madga. nobody will ever know who killed her. it wasn’t me. here is her dead body.” but with no body and no further details, vesta is left to embark on the task of solving the murder mystery herself - or perhaps, the task of figuring out if there is even a mystery to solve at all.
what follows is a claustrophobic, unsettling novel full of metaphysical pondering. moshfegh uses death in her hands to dismantle the form of a murder mystery, pulling at the threads in order to examine what it really means to write a novel. moshfegh’s striking talent at characterisation is particularly prevalent with vesta, whose erratic and unreliable inner monologue feels increasingly hallucinogenic as the book continues, making the reader feel complicit in her madness.
not only is the novel an exploration of art and its process, but it’s also a fascinating meditation on loneliness and ageing. arguably, vesta’s wayward speculation about madga is a symptom of the miserable marriage and belittlement that she endured for most of her life. magda is a vehicle which vesta uses to consider her own life and regrets, imagining the unfolding of madga’s life as a way to reminisce and reconfigure what her own could’ve been. the fictive narrative vesta creates seemingly derives from her own desolation and a yearning for a better story for herself, perhaps serving as a rumination on the intentions of a novelist. stepping away from the ‘murder mystery’ that the novel is wrapped up in, the book very much feels like vesta wrenching back control after living so long without it - essentially, a woman taking back control of her own narrative.
i read the majority of this on the train, and i truly think this book is best consumed in 1 or 2 sittings in order to fully be immersed in the unsettling, frenzied journey. this won’t be for everyone, but if you want a book where you’re already questioning what just happened on the previous page as you’re flipping to the next one, then maybe it’s for you.
January 28, 2021
Ottessa Moshfegh has written a twisted, genre-bending detective story: Her protagonist Vesta Gul is a 72-year-old widow who lives in a remote former girl scout camp with her dog Charlie. But mind you, Vesta is no Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher; rather, it becomes very clear early on that there is something psychologically wrong with this lonely female narrator who tells us that she found a mysterious slip of paper in the woods with the words scribbled on it: "Here name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." There is no dead body though, and the suspense of the whole novel relies on the question what really happened, in how far Vesta is delusional, what her delusions point at, and whether Moshfegh has broken the main rule of the murder mystery: The detective and the murderer can't be the same person.
Vesta sets out to investigate what happened to Magda, but her conclusions mainly rely on projection - her rambling thoughts, her restless mind and her obsession with the note seem to be driven by her lack of occupation and social contacts. She constructs her own suspects and their backstories, gives them names, feels like she recognizes them in people she meets by accident, and we follow her further and further down the rabbit hole. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Vesta's deceased husband of almost four decades, Walter Gul, a German epistemologist with Turkish roots, did not treat her particularly well, and Vesta, who has Croatian roots, still hears his voice telling her what to think and do. Now two fun facts: 1) Vesta is the name of the Roman goddess of home, hearth, and family, 2) Moshfegh herself is half-Croatian.
Throughout the text, we are trapped inside Vesta's mind, which leads to feelings of claustrophobia - although the topic is completely different, the whole narrative experience is not unlike Milkman. What fuels the story is Moshfegh's typical disregard for narrative conventions and her playfulness ("Mystery was an artless gernre, that much was obvious"). Many of Vesta's thoughts are darkly comic, and her ideas frequently point to wider concepts: We have a potential victim called Magda (Mary Magdalene) and a potential perpetratator called Ghod (which might be a reference to, of course, God, or mock deities, or authorities in general, or to Walter - or just check out Urban Dictionary); then there are two poems in there, one Vesta cannot identify (it's W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming", the famous line Moshfegh does not quote but that applies here being "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold"), and the other William Blake's "The Voice of the Ancient Bard"; plus lots of other puzzling stuff like childless Vesta's unsettling fixation on questions of abortion.
So all in all, "Death in Her Hands" has all the classic ingredients of Moshfegh's fiction, mainly the potential to disturb and challenge readers, and I love her daring, fearless, unusual writing. This effort might prove to be quite divisive because the author refuses to leave the self-imposed restrictions of her narrative voice, but I think that's also the special appeal of the story: There is no outside of Magda, she lives entirely within her misaligned perceptions, and while immersed in this story, so do we, the readers.
You can learn more about the book and listen to translator Anke Caroline Burger talk about it in my radio piece and in the new episode of Papierstau Podcast (both in German).
Vesta sets out to investigate what happened to Magda, but her conclusions mainly rely on projection - her rambling thoughts, her restless mind and her obsession with the note seem to be driven by her lack of occupation and social contacts. She constructs her own suspects and their backstories, gives them names, feels like she recognizes them in people she meets by accident, and we follow her further and further down the rabbit hole. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Vesta's deceased husband of almost four decades, Walter Gul, a German epistemologist with Turkish roots, did not treat her particularly well, and Vesta, who has Croatian roots, still hears his voice telling her what to think and do. Now two fun facts: 1) Vesta is the name of the Roman goddess of home, hearth, and family, 2) Moshfegh herself is half-Croatian.
Throughout the text, we are trapped inside Vesta's mind, which leads to feelings of claustrophobia - although the topic is completely different, the whole narrative experience is not unlike Milkman. What fuels the story is Moshfegh's typical disregard for narrative conventions and her playfulness ("Mystery was an artless gernre, that much was obvious"). Many of Vesta's thoughts are darkly comic, and her ideas frequently point to wider concepts: We have a potential victim called Magda (Mary Magdalene) and a potential perpetratator called Ghod (which might be a reference to, of course, God, or mock deities, or authorities in general, or to Walter - or just check out Urban Dictionary); then there are two poems in there, one Vesta cannot identify (it's W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming", the famous line Moshfegh does not quote but that applies here being "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold"), and the other William Blake's "The Voice of the Ancient Bard"; plus lots of other puzzling stuff like childless Vesta's unsettling fixation on questions of abortion.
So all in all, "Death in Her Hands" has all the classic ingredients of Moshfegh's fiction, mainly the potential to disturb and challenge readers, and I love her daring, fearless, unusual writing. This effort might prove to be quite divisive because the author refuses to leave the self-imposed restrictions of her narrative voice, but I think that's also the special appeal of the story: There is no outside of Magda, she lives entirely within her misaligned perceptions, and while immersed in this story, so do we, the readers.
You can learn more about the book and listen to translator Anke Caroline Burger talk about it in my radio piece and in the new episode of Papierstau Podcast (both in German).
Read
November 12, 2019Oh, the terrible wonders of the mind...
Death in Her Hands is a dark & layered novel that lulls the reader into the crumbling psyche of an incredibly lonely & depressed protagonist, desperately trying to free her mind & expunge the painful memories that she tries to bury within a labyrinth of half-truths & alternate history. She is a woman powerless over her mind yet dependent on it to conjure a reality she can believe in; that she can survive in. At length, she reflects on a life of unfulfilled desire; mourning her unrealized dreams, her unsatisfied yearnings, her squandered passion. Recently widowed, she begins to register the hatred she felt for the deleterious, pompous academic she married, & her dissatisfaction with the decades-long monotony of life as a housewife may have caused her mind to deteriorate in deeper ways than she realizes. For years she had been constructing alternate realities & counterlives to combat the constant interia & boredom she felt, & now, in her old age, her mind is uncontrolled & deranged, more dangerous & deceptive than she knows, being without the mental fortitude to comprehend her own deficiences.
In this novel, Ottessa Moshfegh returns to the dark, death reek of McGlue, crafting a meta-murder mystery cum domestic drama, suffused with slowly-built tension, dread & fear. It is all interiority & murk, a story of imagination loosed, delusions, how ideas germinate, sprout & become palpable, living things. The author explores the imaginative mores of senility, of an unwinding mind--quite unsurprising if you've followed her career to this point. While this novel wasn't as transcendent a reading experience as the brilliant and perfect My Year of Rest and Relaxation, it is, nonetheless, a highly entertaining & complex fifth offering from a writer I will stan forever.
Death in Her Hands is a dark & layered novel that lulls the reader into the crumbling psyche of an incredibly lonely & depressed protagonist, desperately trying to free her mind & expunge the painful memories that she tries to bury within a labyrinth of half-truths & alternate history. She is a woman powerless over her mind yet dependent on it to conjure a reality she can believe in; that she can survive in. At length, she reflects on a life of unfulfilled desire; mourning her unrealized dreams, her unsatisfied yearnings, her squandered passion. Recently widowed, she begins to register the hatred she felt for the deleterious, pompous academic she married, & her dissatisfaction with the decades-long monotony of life as a housewife may have caused her mind to deteriorate in deeper ways than she realizes. For years she had been constructing alternate realities & counterlives to combat the constant interia & boredom she felt, & now, in her old age, her mind is uncontrolled & deranged, more dangerous & deceptive than she knows, being without the mental fortitude to comprehend her own deficiences.
In this novel, Ottessa Moshfegh returns to the dark, death reek of McGlue, crafting a meta-murder mystery cum domestic drama, suffused with slowly-built tension, dread & fear. It is all interiority & murk, a story of imagination loosed, delusions, how ideas germinate, sprout & become palpable, living things. The author explores the imaginative mores of senility, of an unwinding mind--quite unsurprising if you've followed her career to this point. While this novel wasn't as transcendent a reading experience as the brilliant and perfect My Year of Rest and Relaxation, it is, nonetheless, a highly entertaining & complex fifth offering from a writer I will stan forever.
February 9, 2020
Oy vey
I read Eileen years ago and didn't like it, but then I picked up My Year of Rest and Relaxation last year and LOVED it. So, I was wary but excited to receive Death in Her Hands as an ARC.
I didn't enjoy it, at all. It was one long stream of consciousness of an old and lonely lady making up stories and scenarios in her head. The premise of the book was great, but it just didn't deliver. That ending was the final nail in the coffin for a 1 star review.
I read Eileen years ago and didn't like it, but then I picked up My Year of Rest and Relaxation last year and LOVED it. So, I was wary but excited to receive Death in Her Hands as an ARC.
I didn't enjoy it, at all. It was one long stream of consciousness of an old and lonely lady making up stories and scenarios in her head. The premise of the book was great, but it just didn't deliver. That ending was the final nail in the coffin for a 1 star review.
June 19, 2020
Death in Her Hands
begins intriguingly, when a woman finds a note in the woods: Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.
But there’s no body, just the note, weighted down with little rocks. Vesta—the 72-year-old widow who discovered it—fancies herself a sleuth and becomes obsessed with Magda but her ‘investigation’ resembles a creative writing exercise: she simply invents the suspects and circumstances leading to Magda’s death. Vesta admits that the note is the closest thing to a social call she’s had in a long time—her’s is a solitary life.
So the reader begins to wonder, what’s up with Vesta? Is she unraveling? Maybe she wrote the note herself? What exactly is going on?
But this is no mere ‘unreliable narrator’ trope, and as the novel progresses it becomes more and more slippery. Vesta reveals more about her ambivalent feelings towards her late husband, and his controlling and cruel nature. And it becomes clear that this is not a whodunit, but a psychological study of grief, regret and facing one’s own mortality.
Slow-moving, atmospheric, with a strong, distinctive voice in the eccentric Vesta, Death in Her Hands is a head-scratcher, in a good way. 4 stars.
But there’s no body, just the note, weighted down with little rocks. Vesta—the 72-year-old widow who discovered it—fancies herself a sleuth and becomes obsessed with Magda but her ‘investigation’ resembles a creative writing exercise: she simply invents the suspects and circumstances leading to Magda’s death. Vesta admits that the note is the closest thing to a social call she’s had in a long time—her’s is a solitary life.
So the reader begins to wonder, what’s up with Vesta? Is she unraveling? Maybe she wrote the note herself? What exactly is going on?
But this is no mere ‘unreliable narrator’ trope, and as the novel progresses it becomes more and more slippery. Vesta reveals more about her ambivalent feelings towards her late husband, and his controlling and cruel nature. And it becomes clear that this is not a whodunit, but a psychological study of grief, regret and facing one’s own mortality.
Slow-moving, atmospheric, with a strong, distinctive voice in the eccentric Vesta, Death in Her Hands is a head-scratcher, in a good way. 4 stars.
November 11, 2022
✧ ↝ 3 stars
Death in Her Hands is one of those novels that is not meaningful, is not clear, is not even very compelling or interesting until you’ve finished it and ponder on what you have just read.
this is an unreliable narrator story to its core, which is not abundantly clear while you are up close and personal with it, experiencing events as the main character does, and does not become abundantly clear until the story is over and you can see the Big Picture.
the author absolutely wrote this well. an elderly woman slowly descends into the dark depths of her mind, all provoked by simply finding a letter in the woods, and it is impossible to tell what is real.
the way this is written is what makes it so impossible to tell what is real, which has its greatest effect once the book has ended. and that, perhaps, is the greatest effect of the book as a whole.
otherwise, this book does not have much substance. the author focuses so hard on blurring the line between true events and ones that are fragments of this elderly woman’s imagination that she forgets to give any depth or importance to the events themselves.
the story, the character(s), and basically everything else that would make one invested in a book also feel extremely depersonalized.
so,
do i care? should i care? why should i care?
answer me that, Ottessa Moshfegh, and i will perhaps be able to give this book more credit for what it does, instead of seeing so clearly (haha) what it does not.
Death in Her Hands is one of those novels that is not meaningful, is not clear, is not even very compelling or interesting until you’ve finished it and ponder on what you have just read.
this is an unreliable narrator story to its core, which is not abundantly clear while you are up close and personal with it, experiencing events as the main character does, and does not become abundantly clear until the story is over and you can see the Big Picture.
the author absolutely wrote this well. an elderly woman slowly descends into the dark depths of her mind, all provoked by simply finding a letter in the woods, and it is impossible to tell what is real.
the way this is written is what makes it so impossible to tell what is real, which has its greatest effect once the book has ended. and that, perhaps, is the greatest effect of the book as a whole.
otherwise, this book does not have much substance. the author focuses so hard on blurring the line between true events and ones that are fragments of this elderly woman’s imagination that she forgets to give any depth or importance to the events themselves.
the story, the character(s), and basically everything else that would make one invested in a book also feel extremely depersonalized.
so,
do i care? should i care? why should i care?
answer me that, Ottessa Moshfegh, and i will perhaps be able to give this book more credit for what it does, instead of seeing so clearly (haha) what it does not.
June 19, 2020
A meandering, inane plot that goes nowhere, a pet murder, and one of the most unlikable protagonists I’ve ever encountered.
Moshfegh writes SO beautifully that is seems like it should be impossible for any of her work to have such poor results, yet here we are.
I loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation. It made me think Moshfegh could do no wrong. Then I read MGlue and wasn’t thrilled with it. I was hoping that this book would be more on par with Rest and Relaxation, but instead found it to be the worst of the lot.
It’s frustrating, because much like in McGlue, Moshfegh gives us stellar tone and poignant turns of phrase in Death in her Hands. But alas, the plot. Oh, the plot.
I wouldn’t have minded the slow and meandering pace if the story had gone somewhere satisfying, if the protagonist hadn’t been so deeply unlikable, if the whole mess hadn’t felt so utterly pointless.
I don’t care for riffing for riffing’s sake in novels unless it’s exceptionally funny or exceptionally observant, and the endless diatribes populating this book are neither. Lots of weirdness for weirdness sake as well, which always feels like an author losing touch with the fact that there’s a reader on the other end of things.
I hate criticizing Moshfegh because I think she has many gifts as a writer, but this book was a colossal waste of the energy spent reading it.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Moshfegh writes SO beautifully that is seems like it should be impossible for any of her work to have such poor results, yet here we are.
I loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation. It made me think Moshfegh could do no wrong. Then I read MGlue and wasn’t thrilled with it. I was hoping that this book would be more on par with Rest and Relaxation, but instead found it to be the worst of the lot.
It’s frustrating, because much like in McGlue, Moshfegh gives us stellar tone and poignant turns of phrase in Death in her Hands. But alas, the plot. Oh, the plot.
I wouldn’t have minded the slow and meandering pace if the story had gone somewhere satisfying, if the protagonist hadn’t been so deeply unlikable, if the whole mess hadn’t felt so utterly pointless.
I don’t care for riffing for riffing’s sake in novels unless it’s exceptionally funny or exceptionally observant, and the endless diatribes populating this book are neither. Lots of weirdness for weirdness sake as well, which always feels like an author losing touch with the fact that there’s a reader on the other end of things.
I hate criticizing Moshfegh because I think she has many gifts as a writer, but this book was a colossal waste of the energy spent reading it.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2020
Audiobook....read by Ann Marie Lee
I like Ottessa Moshfegh....born the same year - 1981- as my older daughter.
The first book I read ( rather listened to), was “Eileen”....(shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize). I couldn’t pull away. I thought I had never read anything more gut wrenching grim ....but damn, if it wasn’t fascinating - in my entire life. I became an instant fan..
Given how successful ‘listening’ to the audiobook of “Eileen”....
I chose the audiobook- again - with “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”...
GREAT- different than “Eileen”, great.....but equally thrilled with the book and my chosen “Audiobook Format.....
Sooooo....( having had great luck with Ottessa’s audiobooks in the past)...
I pre-ordered the audiobook “Death In Her Hands”.....
Only this time....I kept wondering if I made a mistake. Should I have ‘read’ this one - rather than listen to it?
Immediately, I had a judgement with the narrators voice when listening to the famous words ( they are included in the blurb summary and a dozen other places):
“ Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”.....
“But there is no dead body”.....
Ok....got the picture? Those words? They are definitely eye & ear gripping, for sure!
Who wouldn’t be shaken — what the hell was Magda to make of the note? It was CREEPY.....also frightening.
BUT.....with Ann Marie Lee’s voice — I was fighting with my desire to know where the story would go - with the way she sounded.
I eventually got use to her voice....( but noting her voice wasn’t thrilling me in the way the last two Ottessa books did)...
I don’t mind slow....but my god......the unraveling was REALLY SLOW.....
sooooo little was happening for the longgggggest time.
Ottessa Moshfegh >>> I LOVE THIS AUTHOR....and will read her again.....( I’m okay with, weird, eerie satire, haunting suspense, loneliness, delusional thinking, self deprivation, obsession, narcissism....
I expect these things from Ottessa....
but this wasn’t her best book — not for me.
Sluggish plot...
A very lonely - bitter- unreliable - 72 year old woman...
A deceased husband...
A horrific scene with a dog...
Lots of ramblings....
A very-un-fun-dark comic-crime-thriller....that ( this time around), I didn’t jive with the humor.
2 stars....
I personally don’t recommend ‘this’ book.....but I do the first two books I mentioned ( but even those: Ottessa Moshfegh is not for everyone)
I like Ottessa Moshfegh....born the same year - 1981- as my older daughter.
The first book I read ( rather listened to), was “Eileen”....(shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize). I couldn’t pull away. I thought I had never read anything more gut wrenching grim ....but damn, if it wasn’t fascinating - in my entire life. I became an instant fan..
Given how successful ‘listening’ to the audiobook of “Eileen”....
I chose the audiobook- again - with “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”...
GREAT- different than “Eileen”, great.....but equally thrilled with the book and my chosen “Audiobook Format.....
Sooooo....( having had great luck with Ottessa’s audiobooks in the past)...
I pre-ordered the audiobook “Death In Her Hands”.....
Only this time....I kept wondering if I made a mistake. Should I have ‘read’ this one - rather than listen to it?
Immediately, I had a judgement with the narrators voice when listening to the famous words ( they are included in the blurb summary and a dozen other places):
“ Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”.....
“But there is no dead body”.....
Ok....got the picture? Those words? They are definitely eye & ear gripping, for sure!
Who wouldn’t be shaken — what the hell was Magda to make of the note? It was CREEPY.....also frightening.
BUT.....with Ann Marie Lee’s voice — I was fighting with my desire to know where the story would go - with the way she sounded.
I eventually got use to her voice....( but noting her voice wasn’t thrilling me in the way the last two Ottessa books did)...
I don’t mind slow....but my god......the unraveling was REALLY SLOW.....
sooooo little was happening for the longgggggest time.
Ottessa Moshfegh >>> I LOVE THIS AUTHOR....and will read her again.....( I’m okay with, weird, eerie satire, haunting suspense, loneliness, delusional thinking, self deprivation, obsession, narcissism....
I expect these things from Ottessa....
but this wasn’t her best book — not for me.
Sluggish plot...
A very lonely - bitter- unreliable - 72 year old woman...
A deceased husband...
A horrific scene with a dog...
Lots of ramblings....
A very-un-fun-dark comic-crime-thriller....that ( this time around), I didn’t jive with the humor.
2 stars....
I personally don’t recommend ‘this’ book.....but I do the first two books I mentioned ( but even those: Ottessa Moshfegh is not for everyone)
April 3, 2020
It's a rather dark, damning way to begin a story: the pronouncement of a mystery whose investigation is futile. Nobody will ever know who killed her. The story is over just as it's begun. The note certainly didn't promise any happy ending.
So, what's with the synchronicities between this and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead? Both feature a reclusive old woman living in the woods; give prime significance to a dog; riff on the murder mystery genre; use Blake (albeit in different ways); and tackle the oppressions of living under a patriarchy. The more overt engagement with the Catholic church in Drive manifests as teasing hints in Death: Magda, Ghod, Vesta (vestments?), the town where she lives, Bethsmane, a kind of linguistic mash-up of Bethlehem and Gethsemane... One big difference, though, is that while I didn't get on *at all* with Drive Your Plow, I *loved* this!
Moshfegh continues to awe with her originality, her cool and controlled writing, her sheer interestingness (and if that's not a word, it ought to be!). Here, she's attentive to reading, having Vesta parse a brief note to infinity and offering up a model of how to read from all angles. She also delivers a sly masterclass in how to create characters as we watch Vesta - a rich character in her own right - 'create' Magda from nothing.
At the same time, Vesta's own life and personality seep out from behind the smokescreen of plot. In another story, Vesta could have been just one of those women who represent a generation who must have been born in the 1950s: in Moshfegh's hands, she's also an individual, unique, whose voice may have been muted all her life but who steps alive, now, off the page... even as the text itself reminds us that she's a creature of the writer's imagination. Did I say this is seductively meta?
This is less obviously grimy than Eileen, with more ostensible plot than My Year of Rest and Relaxation. There are flashes of Moshfegh's subversive humour (on the now empty urn that held her husband's ashes: 'What would I fill it back up with? Dirt from the garden? Plant a tulip bulb?') and the sheer intelligence, both literary and emotional, shines through. Marvellous, undoubtedly set to be one of my reads of the year - and my book-crush on Moshfegh continues!
Many thanks to Random House/Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.
April 9, 2023
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this novel.
Ottessa Moshfegh novels all seems quite different to each other and this is no exception. While I enjoy Moshfegh’s writing style and flew through this book, overall I neither hated it or loved it.
The novel consists of a rambling stream of consciousness of the unreliable protagonist and her wild imagination.
I have to admit that I was sort of waiting for this to stop and something more concrete to emerge which it didn’t quite.
Ottessa Moshfegh novels all seems quite different to each other and this is no exception. While I enjoy Moshfegh’s writing style and flew through this book, overall I neither hated it or loved it.
The novel consists of a rambling stream of consciousness of the unreliable protagonist and her wild imagination.
I have to admit that I was sort of waiting for this to stop and something more concrete to emerge which it didn’t quite.
September 6, 2021
Hello??? I think this is my new favorite Moshfegh. Jesus Christ. I love her. I stan her. I worship the ground that she walks on. Moshfegh marry me. I love you.
To be completely frank, I think I have no idea what I just read. There is one thing I know for sure: this book was an unreliable narrator at its finest, and god do I love an unreliable narrator. We center around a 72-year old woman named Vesta Gul who finds a mysterious note, saying, “Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed her.” No body was found with the note, but to come to terms with this unsettling discovery, Vesta creates an entire lifestory for this unknown Magda. Her likes, dislikes, romantic endeavors, past friends, until these constructed characters she has created begin manifesting in real life. Or do they? Unreliable narrator. You know.
This was kinda like an A24 movie that doesn’t really have any sense of direction. Things just happen, and it ends. I really dislike those types of stories in film, but for some reason I eat them up when they’re in book format. If I had to try my best to assign some kind of meaning to this in my current half-awake physical state, I would say that this book has its main character struggle with the ideas of existentialism. What’s the purpose of her life, you know? What is she doing if all that follows is death? Hmm. Who’s to say. I’m sure you lot can come up with something a little better than that. But for now, I’m going to sleep.
To be completely frank, I think I have no idea what I just read. There is one thing I know for sure: this book was an unreliable narrator at its finest, and god do I love an unreliable narrator. We center around a 72-year old woman named Vesta Gul who finds a mysterious note, saying, “Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed her.” No body was found with the note, but to come to terms with this unsettling discovery, Vesta creates an entire lifestory for this unknown Magda. Her likes, dislikes, romantic endeavors, past friends, until these constructed characters she has created begin manifesting in real life. Or do they? Unreliable narrator. You know.
This was kinda like an A24 movie that doesn’t really have any sense of direction. Things just happen, and it ends. I really dislike those types of stories in film, but for some reason I eat them up when they’re in book format. If I had to try my best to assign some kind of meaning to this in my current half-awake physical state, I would say that this book has its main character struggle with the ideas of existentialism. What’s the purpose of her life, you know? What is she doing if all that follows is death? Hmm. Who’s to say. I’m sure you lot can come up with something a little better than that. But for now, I’m going to sleep.
August 18, 2020
Seventy two year old widowed Vesta Gul is out walking her dog Charlie in Levant, New England when she finds a curious note on the ground held down by little black rocks. It says ‘Her name is Magda. No one will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body’. Who wrote the note? Who is Magda? Vesta ponders on the conundrum and tries to solve it.
First of all, this is a very well written story with good descriptions and Vesta’s isolation in the woods in a dilapidated cabin are well depicted. It’s an extremely dark story as most of what happens is in Vesta’s head as she tries to solve the mystery of Magda. She’s solitary, probably depressed and possibly has the delusions of some form of dementia. You don’t know what’s real and what isn’t so it's an intriguing puzzle. Walter, her husband was clearly not a pleasant man, certainly a controlling spoil sport so now her mind is free to roam free with all its imaginings of the fate of Magda.
However, the book does not really go anywhere as Vesta’s thoughts just ramble on and go round and round with tangential musings and I can get that in my own head. Vesta is sadly not very likeable, she’s very judgemental and clearly does not really like people as she has little to say or think that is pleasant. On the few occasions you hear Walters Germanic voice all I could picture in my head was Mr Gru not Mr Gul which I’m absolutely certain is not what the author is aiming for!!!
Overall, this is obviously a clever book but it’s not a satisfying reading experience but it may appeal to others more than me.
With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House/Vintage Publishing for the ARC.
First of all, this is a very well written story with good descriptions and Vesta’s isolation in the woods in a dilapidated cabin are well depicted. It’s an extremely dark story as most of what happens is in Vesta’s head as she tries to solve the mystery of Magda. She’s solitary, probably depressed and possibly has the delusions of some form of dementia. You don’t know what’s real and what isn’t so it's an intriguing puzzle. Walter, her husband was clearly not a pleasant man, certainly a controlling spoil sport so now her mind is free to roam free with all its imaginings of the fate of Magda.
However, the book does not really go anywhere as Vesta’s thoughts just ramble on and go round and round with tangential musings and I can get that in my own head. Vesta is sadly not very likeable, she’s very judgemental and clearly does not really like people as she has little to say or think that is pleasant. On the few occasions you hear Walters Germanic voice all I could picture in my head was Mr Gru not Mr Gul which I’m absolutely certain is not what the author is aiming for!!!
Overall, this is obviously a clever book but it’s not a satisfying reading experience but it may appeal to others more than me.
With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House/Vintage Publishing for the ARC.
November 20, 2020
★★ /5
It was not for me, but interesting enough to keep me reading. It was an interesting character study, but being in her head all the time was a little bit too much. Also, it was a little bit confusing and hard to keep track of what was happening.
It was not for me, but interesting enough to keep me reading. It was an interesting character study, but being in her head all the time was a little bit too much. Also, it was a little bit confusing and hard to keep track of what was happening.
December 5, 2025
Watch me read & review this book here: https://youtu.be/iUwIbdO2Wpk
January 2, 2024
What if you were walking your pupper one day and came across a note on the ground that read - ”Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”?
There’s no body. What would you do? I’d call the cops, then go home, and make myself a cup of tea, have a biscuit and put on the TV. It would be the shortest book in the world, boring too. So, thank God our narrator, and old lady called Vesta, didn’t do that – as now we have a story on our hands.
Vesta, a widow – her husband died of cancer, is our narrator and she moved to a small rural place following the death of her husband. A place by a lake – sounds nice. Upon finding the note, she becomes a wee bit obsessed with trying to figure out this whodunit.
But this isn’t a usual murder/mystery, what we get are the internal workings of Vesta’s mind as she trowels through theories of who this “Magda” might be and how she was done in. But, we also see Vesta’s mind unravel and obsess about her life and regrets. Her thoughts become more erratic as the novel progresses, and it seems clear she is descending into some sort of madness.
At first I didn’t know where this story was heading, as it seemed we were focussing on this internal narrative of our main character. After about a third of the novel, I realised what was going on, and I was strapped in for the ride, and found it interesting enough to continue.
This is not your normal whodunnit, far from it. My feeling is, this one will divide opinion. For me, I’ll give it 3 Stars.
There’s no body. What would you do? I’d call the cops, then go home, and make myself a cup of tea, have a biscuit and put on the TV. It would be the shortest book in the world, boring too. So, thank God our narrator, and old lady called Vesta, didn’t do that – as now we have a story on our hands.
Vesta, a widow – her husband died of cancer, is our narrator and she moved to a small rural place following the death of her husband. A place by a lake – sounds nice. Upon finding the note, she becomes a wee bit obsessed with trying to figure out this whodunit.
But this isn’t a usual murder/mystery, what we get are the internal workings of Vesta’s mind as she trowels through theories of who this “Magda” might be and how she was done in. But, we also see Vesta’s mind unravel and obsess about her life and regrets. Her thoughts become more erratic as the novel progresses, and it seems clear she is descending into some sort of madness.
At first I didn’t know where this story was heading, as it seemed we were focussing on this internal narrative of our main character. After about a third of the novel, I realised what was going on, and I was strapped in for the ride, and found it interesting enough to continue.
This is not your normal whodunnit, far from it. My feeling is, this one will divide opinion. For me, I’ll give it 3 Stars.
December 28, 2021
ottessa moshfegh is the only author that can make me hate a book and love it at the same time.
this was one of the most overwhelming and tiring books that i have ever read but i enjoyed it, i think. i just loved reading about a woman slowly going mad and me not knowing what was real and what wasnt so also going mad with her. i honestly wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, maybe if you read other of her books but still, we people that like this are lowkey wrong for that but anyways.
this was one of the most overwhelming and tiring books that i have ever read but i enjoyed it, i think. i just loved reading about a woman slowly going mad and me not knowing what was real and what wasnt so also going mad with her. i honestly wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, maybe if you read other of her books but still, we people that like this are lowkey wrong for that but anyways.
December 29, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
I loveeeee an unreliable narrator!!!! especially (apparently) if it's a feral old lady
I loveeeee an unreliable narrator!!!! especially (apparently) if it's a feral old lady
July 11, 2022
Published today 27/08/2020
Eileen meets Janina, as Ottessa goes meta.
An elderly woman of Eastern European origins, living on her own in something of a backwater, sets out to investigate a murder mystery largely of her own invention. She falls out with the local police and with the locals who see her as an eccentric oddball and she in turn despises as fat and stupid (as we see from her first party viewpoint). Her dog disappears, she invents names for her neighbours, religious references abound.
Its hard to read the blurb for this book – and even harder to read it, without immediately thinking of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” – so much so that a couple of times I had the odd sensation of thinking I had already read passages (particularly those relating to the narrators interactions with others where she occasionally sees how she appears to others and we get a glimpse of the vulnerability behind her bluster).
But this is not in any way to accuse the author of plagiarism or unattributed borrowing (in this book which was apparently first drafted back in 2015), because the signs are made even more obvious for a reader when the narrator of this story Vesta) invents her first protagonist – one who she decides has left the note “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here his her dead body” which starts the book and the murder mystery investigation. Because the protagonist is named by her ............. “Blake”.
(As an aside I was reminded of the end of the first chapter of "Eileen" - ‘So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me… This is the story of how I disappeared.)
Later when Vesta accidentally stumbles across a copy of William Blake’s collected poems with a spookily suitable poem underlined which happens to include: “They stumble all night over the bones of the dead”, two things occur: the reader becomes clearer (if they were not already) on what is going on with Vesta and at the next level up, the reader becomes clearer (if they were not already) on what Moshfegh is doing.
And the meta-approach extends, I think, to Moshfegh’s own work.
On the shortlisting of Eileen, Moshfegh gave a rather infamous Guardian interview (https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...) in which she claimed that she initially wrote “Eileen” using the template of a how-to-write-a-bestseller guide. An interview she now says harmed her chance for the prize and “made it sound like I just filled in the blanks and got lucky.”
So what else does Magda do in the library – but look up (via Ask Jeeves – a nice touch, reflecting the general fustiness of Magda) a guide to “Top Tips for Mystery Writers” and downloads a “character profile questionnaire” which Moshfegh then uses via Vesta to develop the character of Magda - literally filling in the blanks of the questionnaire.
All this is shot through with Moshfegh’s own style – Vesta (of course) has to omit washing/showering for days at a time and the dog (of course) is flatulent. When contemplating the Top Tips recommendation to read lots of other mysteries, Magda says:
As with all the author's writing it can be hard to disassociate the misanthropy of her characters from the author's own views - the opening quote being an example.
I have to say both “Eileen” and “Drive Your Plow” were books I particularly disliked but I did find myself drawn to their mash-up.
My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.
Eileen meets Janina, as Ottessa goes meta.
Mystery was an artless genre, that much was obvious. Not that the more literary novels I had borrowed from the library seemed any more inspired. What got put on the library shelves was all the stuff that won’t surprise you. Blake’s invitation, or poem, I could call it, wouldn’t have made it onto anybody’s nightstand: it was too weird. Her name was Magda. What kind of opening was that? An editor would deem the note too dark to publish. Too much too soon, they’d say. Or it wasn’t suspenseful enough. Too queer. I tried to remember the openings of the last few books I’d read. I couldn’t.
An elderly woman of Eastern European origins, living on her own in something of a backwater, sets out to investigate a murder mystery largely of her own invention. She falls out with the local police and with the locals who see her as an eccentric oddball and she in turn despises as fat and stupid (as we see from her first party viewpoint). Her dog disappears, she invents names for her neighbours, religious references abound.
Its hard to read the blurb for this book – and even harder to read it, without immediately thinking of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” – so much so that a couple of times I had the odd sensation of thinking I had already read passages (particularly those relating to the narrators interactions with others where she occasionally sees how she appears to others and we get a glimpse of the vulnerability behind her bluster).
But this is not in any way to accuse the author of plagiarism or unattributed borrowing (in this book which was apparently first drafted back in 2015), because the signs are made even more obvious for a reader when the narrator of this story Vesta) invents her first protagonist – one who she decides has left the note “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here his her dead body” which starts the book and the murder mystery investigation. Because the protagonist is named by her ............. “Blake”.
(As an aside I was reminded of the end of the first chapter of "Eileen" - ‘So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me… This is the story of how I disappeared.)
Later when Vesta accidentally stumbles across a copy of William Blake’s collected poems with a spookily suitable poem underlined which happens to include: “They stumble all night over the bones of the dead”, two things occur: the reader becomes clearer (if they were not already) on what is going on with Vesta and at the next level up, the reader becomes clearer (if they were not already) on what Moshfegh is doing.
And the meta-approach extends, I think, to Moshfegh’s own work.
On the shortlisting of Eileen, Moshfegh gave a rather infamous Guardian interview (https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...) in which she claimed that she initially wrote “Eileen” using the template of a how-to-write-a-bestseller guide. An interview she now says harmed her chance for the prize and “made it sound like I just filled in the blanks and got lucky.”
So what else does Magda do in the library – but look up (via Ask Jeeves – a nice touch, reflecting the general fustiness of Magda) a guide to “Top Tips for Mystery Writers” and downloads a “character profile questionnaire” which Moshfegh then uses via Vesta to develop the character of Magda - literally filling in the blanks of the questionnaire.
All this is shot through with Moshfegh’s own style – Vesta (of course) has to omit washing/showering for days at a time and the dog (of course) is flatulent. When contemplating the Top Tips recommendation to read lots of other mysteries, Magda says:
“That seemed ridiculous advice. The last thing anyone should do is stuff her head full of other people’s ways of doing things. That would take all the fun out. Does one study children before copulating to produce one? Does one perform a thorough examination of others’ feces before rushing to the toilet?”
As with all the author's writing it can be hard to disassociate the misanthropy of her characters from the author's own views - the opening quote being an example.
I have to say both “Eileen” and “Drive Your Plow” were books I particularly disliked but I did find myself drawn to their mash-up.
My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.
June 29, 2020
I think I expected too much, given all the publicity, from “Death in Her Hands” by Ottessa Moshfegh. This is not a novel for just anyone. One must enjoy quiet contemplation of a woman slowly losing her grip on reality.
The story begins when Vesta, our protagonist, finds a note in the woods while walking her beloved dog. The note reads “Her name was Magna. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”. There is no body, nothing rotting, no evidence of foul play. If I saw that note, I would have assumed it was a pet fish or a small pet of some sort…if anything. Well poor Vesta gets hooked into thinking there was some sort of criminal activity. As Vesta walks home with the note, she imagines what a “Magna” must look like; what a person with her name would be doing in a rural area.
So begins our journey with Vesta as she fantasizes about Magna and what could have happened to her. Vesta is one year new to her new home, moving with her dog and minimal affects. Her husband died before she decided to move. She’s alone, no phone, with a soulless routine.
What Moshfegh does well is write the inner musings of a woman who chooses to detach herself from humanity. Vesta’s imagination is astounding, but believable. Lonely people can talk themselves into unraveling.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. It’s a “meh” for me. I am not upset that I read it in lieu of another novel. But I cannot say I’d recommend it.
The story begins when Vesta, our protagonist, finds a note in the woods while walking her beloved dog. The note reads “Her name was Magna. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”. There is no body, nothing rotting, no evidence of foul play. If I saw that note, I would have assumed it was a pet fish or a small pet of some sort…if anything. Well poor Vesta gets hooked into thinking there was some sort of criminal activity. As Vesta walks home with the note, she imagines what a “Magna” must look like; what a person with her name would be doing in a rural area.
So begins our journey with Vesta as she fantasizes about Magna and what could have happened to her. Vesta is one year new to her new home, moving with her dog and minimal affects. Her husband died before she decided to move. She’s alone, no phone, with a soulless routine.
What Moshfegh does well is write the inner musings of a woman who chooses to detach herself from humanity. Vesta’s imagination is astounding, but believable. Lonely people can talk themselves into unraveling.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. It’s a “meh” for me. I am not upset that I read it in lieu of another novel. But I cannot say I’d recommend it.
February 2, 2022
I hated this book. I was so bored. I had trouble paying attention to what I was reading as my mind kept drifting into other more interesting things. If it wasn’t such a short read I wouldn’t have finished it. Beautiful writing, I’d love to check out her other books, but my god, no to this one. Unless you’re interested in an entire book about the stream of consciousness of a lonely old woman losing her grip on reality then skip this.
March 4, 2024
Brudda wtf is this
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