Ottessa Moshfegh

While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone, and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession, as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was and how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But is there either a more innocent explanation for all this, or a much more sinister one - one that strikes closer to home? In this triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, we must decide whether the stories we tell ourselves guide us closer to the truth or keep us further from it.

Death in Her Hands

Mitch

An ax murderer wouldn’t be very quick on his feet, carrying an ax and all.

“That morning with the meadowlark was, perhaps, a significant day for Charlie. He discovered his innate purpose, some instinct kicked in. But what could I possibly want with that dead bird? I hadn’t shot it down, nobody had. It was an odd thing to feel impelled to retrieve. Such are instincts. They aren’t always reasonable, and often they lead us down dangerous paths.”

“Naive, actually, to think that a mere signature was so binding. It’s just a little ink on paper, just a scribble, my name. They couldn’t come after me, drag me back to Monlith, simply because I’d moved a pen around.”

“That was how life seemed to be—finding things to do to pass the time. The less I’d looked at the clock, the better I knew I’d enjoyed my day.”

“Reading was different, of course. I liked books. Books were quiet. They wouldn’t scream in my face or get offended if I gave up on them. If I didn’t like what I read, I could throw the book across the room. I could burn it in my fireplace. I could rip out the pages and use them to blow my nose, or in the bathroom. I never did any of that, of course—most of the books I read came from the library. When I didn’t like something, I just shut the book and put it on the table by the door, spine facing the wall so that I wouldn’t have to look at it again. There was great satisfaction in shoving a bad book through the return slot and hearing it splat against the other books in the bin on the other side of the librarian’s desk. “You can just hand that to me,” the librarian said. Oh no, I liked to shove it through. It made me feel powerful.

“Oh, forgive me, I didn’t see you there,” I’d whisper.”

“But people lied all the time. It was part of what kept us whole as individuals. A little lying never hurt anybody. It kept the bounds of what one person was distinct from what another person was.”

“Is that what life was like? As much as I complained of Walter leaving me alone at night in Monlith, or traveling too much, there was always money. There was always heat, and nice carpets and fluffy towels, food in the fridge, a newspaper on the front step every morning, and I was embraced from time to time. In the winter I had an entire closet full of warm things to wear.”

Ziggy

You spend so much time playing in your mind, like a sandbox. Everything just slipping through your fingers, nothing solid to hold.

Grace McCarter

Wise, I thought. Smart. Whoever had written the note understood that by masking one's peculiarities, one invokes authority. There is nothing as imposing as anonymity.

There was great satisfaction in shoving a bad book through the return slot and hearing it splat against the other books in the bin on the other side of the librarian's desk. “You can just hand that to me," the librarian said. Oh no, I liked to shove it through. It made me feel powerful. 

“Oh, forgive me, I didn't see you there," I'd whisper.

But I supposed it was indeed the job of the writer to belittle the miracles of this Earth, to separate one question out of the infinite mystery of life and answer it in some sniveling way. 

Decide and move forward. You spend so much time playing in your mind, ,like a sandbox. Everything just slipping though your fingers, nothing solid to hold.

"[An] intricate and unsettling new novel . . . Death in Her Hands is not a murder mystery, nor is it really a story about self-deception or the perils of escapism. Rather, it's a haunting meditation on the nature and meaning of art." -Kevin Power, The New Yorker From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds an ominous note on a walk in the woods. While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one. Becoming obsessed with solving this mystery, our narrator imagines who Magda was and how she met her fate. With very little to go on, she invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past; we must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher.

A Novel

Couldn’t finish this. Excruciatingly boring

Poppy Keogh

"From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds a cryptic note on a walk in the woods that ultimately makes her question everything about her new home While on her normal daily walk with her dog in the nearby forest woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with a frame of stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, having moved here from her longtime home after the death of her husband, and she knows very few people. And she's a little shaky even on her best days. Her brooding about this note quickly grows into a full-blown obsession, and she begins to devote herself to exploring the possibilities of her conjectures about who this woman was and how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But as we follow her in her investigation, strange dissonances start to accrue, and our faith in her grip on reality weakens, until finally, just as she seems to be facing some of the darkness in her own past with her late husband, we are forced to face the prospect that there is either a more innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one--one that strikes closer to home. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both guide us closer to the truth and keep us at bay from it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, only this time the stakes have never been higher"--

A very interesting premise for a novel, but absolutely grueling to read. Follow an elderly woman’s anxiety-attack-turned-obsession, sparked by a surprisingly frank but mysterious note found on the ground. She creates a murder mystery novel in her head, fleshing out each imagined character in great detail. She becomes so lost in her own world, the reader must question which events were conspiratorial and which may be entirely made up. I realize this may be unfair to say about an intentionally stream-of-consciousness story, but after the first page, nothing actually happens until about 3/4ths of the way through the book. As an extremely anxious, insecure, privileged, and boring person; I relate to our annoying and unreliable narrator but find her endless nervous rambling extremely dull. Once she left her house and the story progressed, I started become more interested and enjoyed theorizing about what was happening and what was psychosis. Unfortunately, the ending came swiftly and without any hints at all of a resolution. Even with this description, it sounds like a book I’d really love; but ultimately was very difficult to trudge through for most of it, and the ending was so unsatisfying it kinda pissed me off.

constance

I usually love open endings but this one felt too empty. Rather than making the reader contemplate and reflect, this book non-conclusive ending frustrates me instead. Still, I really enjoyed it.

Wow I haven't been this bored by a book in a long time. I wanted to like this, as I expected it to go in the murder mystery route but it honestly is just one long stream of consciousness that doesn't lead to anything. I also normally like unlikeable and unreliable narrators but I did not like this lady. I fear Moshfegh isn't for me :(

Katherin 

If I found a random note in the woods like Vesta, I’d probably do the same thing start solving an imaginary crime, create a whole backstory, and by the end of the week, I’d have a full on Netflix documentary going in my head. Moral of the story: never leave me alone with my thoughts!

elinabel hidalgo 

Laura 

Patrick Book

I feel like this was written to punk people who read excessive crime fiction, and I like that.

Ryan Mateyk

"Do people do such things?"
"Lonely people do."

Death in Her Hands is Otessa Moshfegh's follow-up to her incredibly popular novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. For myself, as well as it seems many people, this new story falls flat. Although Moshfegh does what she does best, taking a serious genre or idea, and satirizing the heck out of it, Death in Her Hands just didn't hold that same spark while reading.

Vesta Gul is a 70-something widow living off-the-grid in small-town America when she stumbles upon a note in the forest: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." (spoiler: there's not actually any body). Upon this discovery, Vesta takes it upon herself to solve the mystery of Magda's murder, though very early on in this tale we start to question Vesta herself. This is told stream-of-consciousness, and Vesta is... unstable. 

Within her head she creates wild and vividly detailed scenarios, invents characters with complete lives and backstories, even thinks the local cop of some kind of murderous villain. Vesta's thoughts would also often turn inward, highlighting regrets and missed opportunities from her earlier life with her dead husband, Walter, whose control over her and her life is the cause of most of these regrets. She ends up pondering "What if..." - what if I had been an artist? What if I had left? What if I had felt pleasure from my relationship? These what ifs are mirrored by the what ifs Vesta is asking of the crime.

The idea is solid, and the writing was fantastic as always, but.. this book was boring to me, plain and simple. For a book marketed as a thriller, there was very little thrilling about it. Vesta's rambling thoughts honestly were distracting and couldn't hold my attention for too long, which is why this took me a full week to read - I could only take in small bits at a time. At parts, I did find myself into the mystery - did anything actually happen? Is Vesta losing her mind? I did enjoy the ideas of paranoia and conspiracies stemming from Vesta's loneliness. I think reflecting on it now that I'm finished, I appreciate it more than I did while reading. But in the end, there really was no resolution (that ending is a whole other issue) and it just was a bit of a miss from Moshfegh for me.

armoni mayes

I want to start by saying i love ottessa, but tbh the book was a bore.

I love Otessa Moshfegh’s books because they are such wonderful character studies, & they truly stick with me for a long time after. I adore her writing.

I’m only taking a star away because I can’t stand dog deaths in books 🥲 Had to hug my pup afterwards 

Katie Berges 

I love Otessa Moshfegh’s books because they are such wonderful character studies, & they truly stick with me for a long time after. I adore her writing.

I’m only taking a star away because I can’t stand dog deaths in books 🥲 Had to hug my pup afterwards 

Maria

in terms of writing and the way the story (and mystery) is structured this is good i enjoyed it a lot. but as a whole? a snoozefest. i cant give it a lower rating bc i do think the writing saves it & i get what moshfegh was trying to do but meh idk

kayla 

she had at least one death in her hands so there's that

mousie

i think i just learned how to accept death

Sarah

Sarah Pitts

3.75

i adore ottessa moshfegh’s writing style but im still looking for one of her stories that i really love

The synopsis of the book seemed really interesting, and I thought this would be a subversion of the murder mystery novel. Except nothing really happens. I appreciate the protagonist being a more mature woman (which is a rare choice, to me) but as per Moshferg fashion, she is difficult to root for.

I didn’t like the lack of plot and had to trudge to finish it. Everything happens in the protagonist’s mind but the story or delusion or writing was not captivating enough to keep my interest. My least favourite from Moshferg thus far. 

Xiang

The synopsis of the book seemed really interesting, and I thought this would be a subversion of the murder mystery novel. Except nothing really happens. I appreciate the protagonist being a more mature woman (which is a rare choice, to me) but as per Moshferg fashion, she is difficult to root for.

I didn’t like the lack of plot and had to trudge to finish it. Everything happens in the protagonist’s mind but the story or delusion or writing was not captivating enough to keep my interest. My least favourite from Moshferg thus far. 

lexie

the rambling got me really steady at reading it in one sitting, i loved that it confuses you the entire book to keep you into reading more.

esperanza 

tori

I wanted to DNF but I wanted another book towards my reading goal more

I was really interested in the concept of obsession at the start of this book, but it really lost me when the main character's inner monologue became insanely focused on other people's body shapes... 

Grace Frost

Chris Mock

Marcus Rosen

I thought this was bad for the first half, then very good the second half, and I just finished it and started crying and I don't know why.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by: The Washington Post, Vogue, Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, New York Magazine, Paste Magazine, LitHub, E! News Online, and many more From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds an ominous note on a walk in the woods. While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one. Becoming obsessed with solving this mystery, our narrator imagines who Magda was and how she met her fate. With very little to go on, she invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past; we must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher.