Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (2020)

An elderly woman finds a mysterious note in the woods, causing her mind to spiral wildly.

Book Review: Death in Her Hands was my most eagerly anticipated novel of the last two years and the biggest disappointment. I thought her new book would demonstrate that Ottessa Moshfegh was the writer of our time, but it didn't and it isn't a new book. Death in Her Hands was written in 2015 as therapy for the grief she felt ("it was almost like someone had died") when she finished her excellent story collection, Homesick for Another World. So she wrote a thousand words a day until she'd "reached the conclusion of something." She put it away in a drawer, rediscovering it years later. I was hoping for a great leap forward from her first four brilliant books: McGlue (2014) was an unlikely historical sea chantey of a tale and a bizarre tour de force of a novella; Eileen (2015) was an amazing first novel and character study (a Holden Caulfield for our time) that promised Moshfegh would own the world as soon as she got her overabundant skills in order; Homesick for Another World (2017) contained all the experimentation, detours, and pinball bursts of twisted, odd ideas that a short story collection is supposed to embody; and My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) was just short of perfect, every page luminous. I believed she was the next great writer of our time. Really. Maybe not a Toni Morrison, but a Pynchon or a Wallace. Let's take Death in Her Hands for what it is. It's a quick read that pulls you along for an expected payoff that may not be all it would or could or should be (I seem to remember feeling somewhat the same at the end of Eileen). It seems so much not of our times, pointless, mostly a self-indulgent writing experiment. An adventure by Moshfegh into "pantsing," her own form of automatic writing. Moshfegh says that she wrote "without a plan" and never revised or looked back till finished. But as one does when writing without a plan, one creates page after page wandering around looking for a plan. A book in search of a story, which the reader dutifully follows along like a ... dog (one of the main characters here is a dog. At one point the protagonist makes the dog "Eat the lentils or go to bed hungry." I related.). Another book about an isolated, unsettled woman. Moshfegh calls it a "meta-murder-mystery" and yes it sort of is as we get to see Vesta, the narrator, construct her own story much as an author might write a book. Yes, Moshfegh has her character imagine the story that Moshfegh is writing: "The note could have been the beginning of a story tossed out as a false start, a bad opening." Very meta. The main character is an older woman, but she doesn't ring true: "I was a little old lady." And there is no mystery. There has to be something there. Reminded me of The Little Friend by Donna Tartt, which was incredibly well-written, promised so much, and delivered so little. Moshfegh has a history of always being her own person: "All the work I do is a performance." The libraries being closed, she has my money and I have this. As she says, "I wrote it for myself." I'll wait for the next one.  [2½★]