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A review by babyitsallright
Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
Already a fan of Moshfegh’s work, I recently picked up this novel from The Book Hive in Norwich and was instantly hooked from the enticing blurb.
I found Death in Her Hands to be an intensely insular and gripping read that blurred the lines between reality and the protagonist’s (Vesta) personal fiction. I loved Vesta’s imagination as it took a winding road theorising who Magda was and why she ended up dead, entirely exacerbated by her loneliness following a recent move. Her slow loss of grip on reality, had the similar haunt of previous works but personally left much to be desired. The original grip the novel had on me weakened by the end and wrapped up not necessarily to nothing, but to nothing that lingered on with a uncomfortability that I’ve felt in her previous works, particularly, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
It wasn’t necessarily that the anticlimax of the slow murder mystery winding up having no real mystery is where I felt it fell short but rather that what was left didn’t feel substantial enough; like pulling away a curtain to reveal not something you necessarily expected but not something you were shocked by. The realisations of regret for her life and disdain for her late husband were fascinating and left me wanting more because that is what Moshfegh really excels at and could have led to that almost sickening ending I was hoping for.
Another dislike with the novel was the jarring fatphobia, which features often in her work. It feels out of place, like the author is bleeding through. Vesta as a character has contempt for a lot of different people throughout, there’s most forms of bigotry at one point or another, creating a highly judegmental and unlikeable character, but the fatphobic passages are harsher and repetitive of previous novels. It always feels like a cheap and lazy shot at being subversive or provocative.
There’s no doubt in my mind still that Moshfegh is an incredible writer, with a distinctive and affecting style but Death in Her Hands is, for me, far from the magic of MYORAR or Homesick for Another World.
I found Death in Her Hands to be an intensely insular and gripping read that blurred the lines between reality and the protagonist’s (Vesta) personal fiction. I loved Vesta’s imagination as it took a winding road theorising who Magda was and why she ended up dead, entirely exacerbated by her loneliness following a recent move. Her slow loss of grip on reality, had the similar haunt of previous works but personally left much to be desired. The original grip the novel had on me weakened by the end and wrapped up not necessarily to nothing, but to nothing that lingered on with a uncomfortability that I’ve felt in her previous works, particularly, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
It wasn’t necessarily that the anticlimax of the slow murder mystery winding up having no real mystery is where I felt it fell short but rather that what was left didn’t feel substantial enough; like pulling away a curtain to reveal not something you necessarily expected but not something you were shocked by. The realisations of regret for her life and disdain for her late husband were fascinating and left me wanting more because that is what Moshfegh really excels at and could have led to that almost sickening ending I was hoping for.
Another dislike with the novel was the jarring fatphobia, which features often in her work. It feels out of place, like the author is bleeding through. Vesta as a character has contempt for a lot of different people throughout, there’s most forms of bigotry at one point or another, creating a highly judegmental and unlikeable character, but the fatphobic passages are harsher and repetitive of previous novels. It always feels like a cheap and lazy shot at being subversive or provocative.
There’s no doubt in my mind still that Moshfegh is an incredible writer, with a distinctive and affecting style but Death in Her Hands is, for me, far from the magic of MYORAR or Homesick for Another World.