Lapvona

Originally from New England, Moshfegh relocated to California after completing a Master of Fine Arts degree at Brown and a fellowship at Stanford. Her first novel, Eileen, was published in 2015 with much critical claim, winning the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, immediately launching her writing career. Since then, she has published three other novels, a novella, and a short story collection.

Critics praised Eileen especially for its darkness: “Charmingly disturbing. Delightfully dour. Pleasingly perverse” (Zimmerman, Jean. “Eileen Is Dark, Damaged Fun.” NPR, 23 Aug. 2015). Moshfegh’s later novels continue the pattern, focusing on amoral characters who live on the fringes of society and demonstrating a willingness to examine the perverse or grotesque in meticulous detail. Eileen tells the story of an insecure and lonely young woman who works as a secretary at a prison while she cares for her father with alcoholism. A new friendship brings some pleasure back into her life until her friend leads her down a path of crime and darkness. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Moshfegh’s second novel, follows another lonely and unhappy young woman in her attempt to sleep a year of her life away using a curated cocktail of prescription medications. Death in Her Hands tells the story of an elderly widow who becomes obsessed with unraveling the mystery of a dead woman. However, the widow’s mental state is ambiguous, and the supposed crime forces her to confront her own dark history. All three of the books feature deeply lonely narrators, gallows humor, and an interest in behaviors society deems deviant.

Lapvona follows in the tradition of these themes but deviates from her prior use of the first-person narrative. Lapvona’s use of omniscient third person enables her to explore a tapestry of unique perspectives and personalities. The characters are still on the fringes: an abused boy born with a twisted spine, a lord affected in his development, a witchy woman who draws power from mysterious sources. However, Lapvona also delves deeper into issues of class and gender than Moshfegh’s earlier novels.

Moshfegh was partially inspired to write Lapvona by the weight of absence she felt after her brother’s death by overdose: “It was this central question—How do you live as the replacement for someone who died?—that Moshfegh kept thinking about” (Limbong, Andrew. “Ottessa Moshfegh’s Year of Death and Internet Clout”). This question led to the creation of Marek, the central figure of Lapvona, who replaces the lord’s son after killing him. Lapvona has been criticized as the bleakest and ugliest of Moshfegh’s work, but like all her novels, it nods to the mysterious and mystical as a source of light. While Moshfegh’s characters may be troubled and at times horrifying, they continually reach for something to save themselves. In Lapvona, Marek seeks out love even though its absence in his life eventually leads to his ruin. Moshfegh’s fans take pleasure in her prose as well as this sense of yearning for something better.