Literary

A conversation with writer Ottessa Moshfegh

Ottessa Moshfegh is becoming everyone’s favorite author, and it’s not by coincidence. Ever since her first publication in 2014, McGlue, Moshfegh has gone on to write four more novels with no playbook to follow. From murder notes while walking your dog to casual paralysis, any narrative is fair game for her. Moshfegh is able to provide her readers with a silky combination of danger and delight that can only be produced through attentive recognition of the literary world. With an undergraduate degree from Barnard, an MFA from Brown, and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford under her belt, Moshfegh has shown again and again the nuance and sensitivity needed to push contemporary writing forward. This author of Eileen is 39, deliberate, and brilliant.

Moshfegh’s 2018 best-selling novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation taps into her ability to play with devices of genres and personal narrative as she unfolds a story about a gorgeous blonde woman that is determined to sleep for an entire year. The narrator is unapologetically uncouth (“And my mother busy being herself, which in the end seemed worse than having cancer”) and brutally honest (“She was going to be annoying, I could tell”). By turning the reader towards a pre-9/11 New York City, Moshfegh captures the environment of a disillusioned society unaware of what is to come. From a modern viewpoint, we are able to fill this absence of anxiety ourselves. As we all go through what feels like a year of attempted rest and relaxation, we can appreciate the irony in how much effort the unnamed protagonist extends to self-isolate.

To read Moshfegh’s writing, we gladly indulge in ‘dislikable’ female characters—their backgrounds, intentions, and attitudes toward life. Moshfegh offers a renewed evaluation of what it means to be repulsed that is both refreshing and shocking. She is direct in her exploration of novels that lie slightly beyond reality and personal convention.

Moshfegh video-calls me from the comfort of her home in Los Angeles. Over Zoom, her expression is soft and attentive. She grabs the kombucha next to her and rolls the sleeves of her oversized grey sweater. For the next 45 minutes, we discuss her novel in the making, the boring people in our lives, and the significance of everyday inspiration.

The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The College Hill Independent: Let’s begin. I have to ask, how are OM: I don’t read reviews. But criticism still gets reflected back when you? How has quarantine been? I engage with publicity and go on tours. So I end up generally aware of what critical conversations are circulating about my work. I had Ottessa Moshfegh: As an author, I think it has been pretty good. I no idea that so much of being a professional writer was dealing with was supposed to be on a tour for my new book that required travelling shit like that. At the beginning of my career five years ago, there across Europe in the UK and in France for a month, and that ended was a sharp and intense learning curve with how to deal with public up getting cancelled. I got to have this surprise spring at home, which opinion. was good for me as a writer. There is a kind of disillusionment that happens with authors

And about a month into quarantine, I decided I needed a project when they publish their first novel that has been so painstaking that could help me focus on something discreet from the other work and requires so much sophistication of thinking. So much deliberthat I was doing. So, I started a novel. I have a draft of it at this point. ation. And when things are spoken in a way that looks at the book Other than that, I’ve had a lot of ongoing work. I consider myself a as a product, independent of the mind that created it or what it’s novelist, but I have been working a lot with Scripps screenwriting. reflecting, it’s really disappointing. It kind of breaks your heart. I rely on this kind of separatist arrogance. Most people have no Indy: The current space for artists and creators to continue producing idea what’s valuable in terms of literature. They have no sensitivity. work in the industry seems to be evolving with the pandemic. Some They are mostly addicted to television, and if a book isn’t giving authors are drawing themes influenced by isolation while others them what they are addicted to in terms of narrative, they will not abstain from this over-emphasization. Would you say you’ve been be able to understand it. I believe that that’s true and interesting and participated in such evolution? also… shitty. I play into the addicted mentality in the way that I structure OM: Thematically, the plague was pretty inspiring. I knew I didn’t my illusion and with suspense. I’m rubbing people the wrong way want to write about the contemporary world, so I immediately went because I try to disabuse them of that addiction. I don’t think about to the Middle Ages. The novel will be set in third-person where each it that much when I’m actually doing it; it’s only in hindsight. I’m not character lives in this fictional medieval age. There’s a village that a conformist but I like playing into traditional forms because it’s an represents a microcosm of current society to a certain extent. I’m not opportunity to get onto the inside and start perverting and mutating writing about the Black Plague, but it’s an opportunity to look at rela- what is the status quo. When Eileen came out, the reception was like tionships between different people, classes, and family backgrounds. “oh my god, we never heard of a woman with BO.” But now five years The way things get monetized. The way that power works and its later, I think we’re in a different place. influence on the environment. This feels very current to me. Indy: We are, definitely. Indy: I noticed your characters, especially those in Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, are quite three-dimensional. You OM: If you write into where we are right now, your book is going to see a bit of non-fiction in them, even though the types of quests be outdated. You have to write for the future reader. they undertake (such as attempting to fall asleep for an entire year through drugs) are out of the ordinary. How do you manage to make Indy: Writing for the future reader. In the publishing industry, them feel so familiar? there will always be a demand that depends, to a certain extent, on matters that we deem relevant. Even in our present context with OM: If I’m going to dedicate myself and commit to an entire novel, the continued political chaos, many books have been curated as an my character has to be interesting to me. I tend to focus on characters answer to it. Writing in this way—is that energizing or exhausting? that have dimensionality beyond what I am familiar with in terms of knowing another person. While there might be some autobiograph- OM: I really believe in sitting down and just working. I believe in ical influence, I’m mostly trying to create the illusion that I’m writing goal-fulfillment. I believe in showing up for the work and the time from the first-person perspective. From my heart. That’s not really a revolving it, even when you don’t have anything to give. reflection of me, that’s a reflection of my writing style craft. I was in Wyoming for a writing residency for a month, and I

I want there to be a sense of conspiratorial, secret intimacy could work from 7 am till 7 pm. Now when I am home and hanging between the narrator and the reader. You have access to the protago- with my husband not working, my concentration goes to shit (laughs). nist that the other characters in the book don’t. I think that has been I mean it was election week, too. There are certain things we can really consistent throughout my short stories and novels. It’s inter- control and can’t: we can control our effort, not talent. It’s the same esting to move away from that with my current novel. gesture for inspiration: we can control and make a decision to pay

In terms of my characters being “crazy,” I mean—is Indiana attention, to have an expectation that inspiration is there. Jones crazy? We know they are fiction. I don’t know about you but In the quarantine, when you are usually engaging in society, there are so many boring people in my life that don’t surprise me. If there are abundant opportunities to see things reflected in new ways. I’m creating a book, I want it to be beyond reality. Creative opportunities in narrative. When you are alone and can’t go anywhere, you have to build that universe for yourself. Whether Indy: I’ve seen some of your past interviews. The ones with The Cut that’s something inside or an immediate environment. Any kind of and The Guardian come to mind. You said, “I’m the most self-as- creative playfulness, like rearranging objects in your room, can put sured person I’ve ever met, very arrogant at times, sure. I can’t make your mind in that space. You are seeing space in different relationa wrong move. I know what I’m doing.” I can’t help but admire that, ships, but it’s really challenging. but I’m sure there have been critics in the past that don’t share this perspective. What’s it like dealing with that? Indy: It presents authors with a unique challenge that may never come again. This is the time to explore in ways we haven’t thought about before which is beautiful in a sense. Would you say there are other sources during this time that inspired you in this journey of observation?

OM: Everything has been accumulative. Oftentimes the things I’m interested in as a reader have nothing to do [with what interests me] as a writer. I’m happy since reading other people’s fiction tends to be distracting more than anything.

I live with my husband who is also a writer. Between us, there is this kind of blood circulation of consciousness around writing. There is a lot of sharing going on. He likes to talk about writing; I tend to not like to talk about writing, so we meet somewhere in the middle. That has been a big influence.

As an artist though, Kurt Cobain, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone. These are the people that have influenced me the most. The music that I listened to when I was in high school was definitely the stuff that helped me tap into a deeper place. That’s where I’m always trying to go.

Indy: You’ve also had a history with Brown, being part of the university’s MFA program. You produced McGlue which can be viewed as the first work of literature that really put your name out there. Has your time at Brown influenced the foundational layers to what makes you a writer?

OM: The program really supported an individual sense of curiosity. The people in my MFA were all completely different writers and interests. So when we got together to talk, we had to communicate on the highest level we could find on a common ground. This is totally not the case in different communities of writers. I look back at Brown, and think damn, I should have been more appreciative of my time there. There was a kind of radical vibe that was so refreshing. I went to Barnard, you know. Which is a type of radical more buttoned-up.

Indy: And do you see your novels venturing into the film industry? Transforming a piece of written literature meant for print into a digital piece of art must require balancing substance. How would you go about that?

OM: Screenplay adaptations are really their own art. You can’t expect to reproduce the novel. You have to conceive the film as the novel’s cousin, an entity that shares some DNA with the original material but that can stand on its own. I’ve adapted a lot of my books into screenplay, and I find that the hardest adaptation is when a breakthrough in the novel is something internal so you have to figure out how to translate this visually. Cohering that with the plot is really challenging. It’s a totally different set of narrative skills.

Indy: And what is next for Ottessa Moshfegh?

OM: I’ve been really getting into movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s very funny to watch it in a writer’s perspective because I’m constantly wondering how they come up with dialogue. That’s always a question. How did you do this?