We’re not all heroes always we all have moments where we’re not fit to be seen or heard.Īnd accordingly, the moments of grace, compassion, and connection inÂ _Homesick for Another World_Â feel all the more precious. Allowing these characters the gift of being seen clearly.Īfter all, when Moshfegh writes of the weird, disgusting, pointless things we do with our bodies when we’re alone, the horrifying thoughts we have in passing, of all the times we were bad or lazy instead of good and brave, she’s writing about essential aspects of humanity. Rather, by bringing us so deeply into her character’s heads, unfiltered and honest, yet in prose that is cool and clean, Moshfegh transmutes disgust into love, or, if not love exactly, the next best thing to love in fiction'”understanding. Though they are perverted, delusional, even sometimes hateful'”you name it'”it was not as a car-crash rubbernecker that I avidly read about them. That’s Ottessa Moshfegh.Įven as the characters inÂ _Homesick for Another World_Â repelled me, they drew me in. It’s the pleasure you feel when you discover a genuinely special voice, when just a few sentences into a story you know you’re reading a writer who could never be mistaken for anyone else'”a hilarious writer, a terrifying writer, a writer who’s keenly aware that the everyday is also the setting for the outrageous, the surreal. So by all rights Ottessa Moshfegh’s writing should make me deeply uncomfortable: In her story collectionÂ Homesick for Another World, Moshfegh writes of seedy loners and proud creeps, giving us brilliant insight into the inner lives of some seriously unpleasant people.Īnd uncomfortable it did make me, but 1) honestly, that’s a good thing, and 2) the other feeling I experienced alongside discomfort was pure freaking pleasure. Though I try to fight it, at heart I’m a New England prude.

Homesick for another world book