Review for "Homesick for Another World" by Ottessa Moshfegh (to be published on 17 January 2017)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Ottessa Moshfegh is a writer after my own heart. This is not science fiction (although the cover is deceiving) or a happy volume of stories. Each tale here has a dark, flawed, transgressive quality to it. Her characters are all grossly unlikeable, yet they stick you like Gorilla Glue long after you’ve finished reading them. I loved her novel Eileen, and honestly I really just love Moshfegh so much period that whatever she’s got I know I’m probably going to like it. There are about a dozen stories in Homesick, some of which have already appeared in other fiction journals over the years, but it’s cool because they’re worth a second look. In “A Dark and Winding Road” a man gets more than he bargained for on a trip to a mountain cabin. In “Bettering Myself” a thirty-something teacher finds that the key to her own happiness really isn’t a key at all. In “Slumming” a woman finds solace in dysfunctional behavior and drug addiction. All of the characters here are mired in riddles and self-delusion, and I won’t give away the rest of the stories here but please take my word when I tell you that the prose here is definitely top-notch. I’ll continue to read whatever this woman writes.
[Note: A free digital copy of this book was provided by the publisher, Penguin Press, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
29chapters.com 