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Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel.Īnd for good reason. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. She’s brilliant, this young woman."-David Sedaris

Simultaneously, I’m shocked and scandalized. "I can’t recall the last time I laughed this hard at a book. One of the most gifted and exciting young writers in America, she shows us uncomfortable things, and makes us look at them forensically – until we find, suddenly, that we are really looking at ourselves.A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017Īn electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time

Moshfegh has been compared to Flannery O’Connor, Jim Thompson, Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith but her voice and her mastery of language and tone are unique. The flesh is weak the timber is crooked people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful, but beauty comes from strange sources, and the dark energy surging through these stories is oddly and powerfully invigorating.

What makes these stories so moving is the emotional balance that Moshfegh achieves – the way she exposes the limitless range of self-deception that human beings can employ while, at the same time, infusing the grotesque and outrageous with tenderness and compassion. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet all yearning for connection and betterment, in very different ways, but each of them seems destined to be tripped up by their own baser impulses. There’s something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh’s stories, something almost dangerous while also being delightful – and often even weirdly hilarious. The debut short story collection by the author of Eileen, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016.