Death in Her Hands is (no surprises here, coming as it does from the singular mind of Ottessa Moshfegh) weirdly experimental and oddly affecting. Whereas Moshfegh's previous bestsellers (Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation) used black humour and uncomfortably unmentionable material to explore the uninhibited inner minds of young women, in this outing the protagonist is 72-year-old Vesta Gul – a new widow, recently transplanted to a remote cabin in the woods in an unfamiliar state – and the reader is trapped in Vesta's claustrophobic “mindspace” as she finds herself working through an apparent murder mystery. This book seems like one thing, veers off into an entirely different direction, and ends up exposing the lifetime of hurts that created this forgotten old woman's obsessive interiority. Part creepshow, part whodunit, with layers of irony you can feel in your fillings, I was left with an overwhelming empathy and sadness for all the Vestas out there; what Moshfegh's previous books exposed about the inner lives of young women, Death in Her Hands does for an elderly woman looking back on her life, and if you have any interest in a short, offbeat, and disquieting journey, I'd recommend visiting with Vesta in her cabin by the lake

This novel is sui generis. Reminded me in spirit (though not in form!) of Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. I hesitate to call it a mystery or even suspense — it’s more of a psychologal dissection. Whatever the genre I was delighted to feature it in my Books column for Zoomer magazine as part of my essential reading list of early summer (online, as well as in the June print edition).

Ottessa Moshfegh does it again with another quirky, engrossing, and head-scratching story (what did I just read?). Vesta is an elderly window who lives alone on a lake in a small town. Her only company is her dog, Charlie. One day while walking Charlie in the woods she stumbles upon a cryptic note that seems to be about a murder. Vesta decides to investigate and in doing so, she recalls memories of her life that she would rather forget.

Vesta is an interesting character who may not be what she seems. This book is dark, but Moshfegh has perfect comedic timing that is thrown in just right places. I’ve enjoyed all of Moshfegh’s work and her newest one did not disappoint.

Not up to scratch with Moshfegh's other novels unfortunately. I admired what she did with the story here but I can't say I liked it very much. The main problem is that too much time is spent on Vesta making up details about "Magda." Of course Moshfegh wants us to ultimately realize that it is fruitless to criticize or question this when fiction is after all people making things up! It seems Death In Her Hands is supposed to be about writing and imagination rather than being a true "murder mystery." Yet it is made to look and sound like a murder mystery so surely most r eaders will be disappointed by it. Underwhelming.

Wonderful, addictive read that I finished in two days. Entirely original and strange in the best ways.

It genuinely impressed me, even in the parts of the book I didn't like as much, how all in Moshfegh was willing to go on this concept. There's no stinting, no moment of grace, nothing even approaching something you'd see in the feel good version of this book where some kindly stranger reaches out to alleviate some of Vesta's loneliness. No, this is loneliness without any gilding, a narrative much closer to reality than something like, say, "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" or "A Man Called Ove." And because of that, it can be a rough read, especially when you reach the end and the line between the imagined and the real has less of a blackly comic note and is more plainly sad.

I had no objection to that. Nor did I have any objection to the fact that it was obvious, pretty much from the jump, that the mystery set up was a fake out. My quibbles with the book have more to do with the elements Moshfegh set up in the beginning and then never really used; there were a whole host of things scattered in those opening chapters that I thought we'd see more fully addressed by the end, but unfortunately not. Which I think was kind of a waste.

And yet, even though I do feel this book fell short in ways (in addition to the above, it also loses steam quite a bit near the end) I really like what Moshfegh was saying here. Like "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" this book addresses a state of being I've seldom seemed elsewhere in fiction. And for that reason, if nothing else, I'd recommend it.

Reading this dark, decadent novel during the pandemic felt almost too timely. The narrator's are mostly confined to her home, as well as the woods behind it, and if I found a scrap of paper in the woods right now, I might also spin a terrible story and recruit any available cast of characters. Still, this story is so wonderfully layered, I'm already looking forward to rereading!

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

There’s much to admire about Moshfegh’s writing. That she has such a sense of ease and humor. The construct, a woman researching a mystery, by way of how one writes a mystery, expertly handles some of the most troubling, or challenging craft aspects and enables Moshfegh to get to work doing what we all love best… the writing. The word play.

Death was like old, brittle, lace, the applique about to separate from the fine mesh threads, nearly shredded, hanging there, beautiful and delicate and about to disintegrate. Life wasn't like that. Life was robust. It was stubborn. Life took so much to ruin. One had to beat it out of the body. Even just the slightest seed of life, a fertilized egg, took payment, an expert machine, and an industrial vacuum, I'd heard. Life was persistent. There it was, every day. Each morning it woke me up. It was loud and brash. A bully. A lounge singer in a garish sequin dress. A runaway truck. A jackhammer. A brush fire. A canker sore. Death was different. it was tender, a mystery. What was it, even? Why did anybody have to die? Walter, the Jews, how many innocent children... my thoughts lost their train. How did people go on with their lives as though death weren't all around them? There were theories, heaven, hell, rebirth, and so forth. But did anybody really know? Was there an answer? How unfair it seemed to send the living off into death, into the unknown so cold. -76

True to Moshfegh form! Voice and tone makes this reader feel like she is on a great camping weekend where we sit around the fire and craft stories for one another. She wins and builds and makes you laugh, feel ennui, and wax melancholy at how pathetic and unethical humans are. Once again gorgeous Otessa!

I think the time has come for me to come to terms with my general dislike of Ottessa Moshfegh's style. At least with "My Year of Rest and Relaxation," there was residual dwelling, and though I didn't enjoy the process, I got something out of the reflection. With this book ... I just have not idea what the point was. It was just SO BORING. I found myself skimming the relentless, endless self-dialog about "Who was Magda? Who killed her? Was it this randomly assigned name of a perceived young kid named Blake?" etc. etc. The only enjoyable parts were the experiences Vesta had enjoying her garden, her fireplace, her glass of wine at night, her dog Charlie, and her wanderings. But these were subplot to the rambling thoughts. Her constant disdain for anyone with more flesh than societally "acceptable" and her judgment of these people was really gross. I held out skimming because I read some other reviews that pointed towards a "reveal," but the only reveal for me was the death of the dog, which I just can't tolerate. Also the metaphysical "murder" of Vesta's life by this guy she married, I guess??? I don't know, I just didn't like this book at all.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3243852208
Very dark, somehow darker than her other novels. A lot is left unresolved.

4 out of 5 stars

Inexplicably odd and extremely satisfying. I enjoyed this book, it blends a genre I never read (mystery/crime) with literary fiction (which I love). It's one of those, it's not the destination, it's the journey books and I greatly enjoyed it.

I have loved and evangelized Ottessa Moshfegh's other books (My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Eileen), but this one just didn't clear the bar for me. It felt a little like a short story that was workshopped into something longer, but should have stayed a short story with a few too many similarities to Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk.

I was expecting an unusual, unpredictable book from the author of My year of rest and relaxation and in that respect I wasn't disappointed!

This story is told from the perspective of Vesta Gull, a widow who, after the death of husband, ups sticks from their marital home and moves to the quiet country town of Levant to an old girl scout cabin at the edge of the woods with just her dog Charlie for company. A creepy setting for a creepy, unsettling story.

Vesta has adapted to a very quiet, hermetic way of life, only venturing to the grocery store in nearby Bethsmane once a week and rarely deviating from her own habits and routines and then one day whilst walking Charlie in the Birch woods she finds a note that changes everything.

The note reads 'Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body.' Vesta becomes obsessed with the note, who could have written it and who Magda is, but the methods she employs to try and solve the mystery are unorthodox to say the least! She begins to create a cast of characters in her mind who are linked to this possible murder (there is, in point of fact no dead body in the woods). As Vesta gets more and more wrapped up in her own imaginations, fiction starts to blend with reality as the people of Levant become the people in her imagination and so Vesta's grip on reality starts to unravel.

I found this to be an enjoyable reading experience, particularly as the main character is living an isolated life which is particularly apt in the current climate. Otessa Moshfegh has an excellent writing style - literary but easy to read and up until a certain point I was carried along nicely by the plot. However, by the end I mainly felt like I wasn't getting the point or the meaning of the story and it made me feel a bit inadequate! I understood that Vesta's grip on reality was failing and she had clearly experienced psychological abuse at the hands of her husband during their forty year marriage, but was someone going in her cabin? did someone let Charlie out? Who did put the note in the woods and was that even real? Did Charlie attack her at the end? I want to know!!! An absorbing reading experience with, for me, a frustrating ending.

I honestly can't say that I recommend this one -- the writing was impeccable, of course, which I have come to expect from this author but the story was beyond boring. I kept waiting for something to happen but this was so cerebral that I almost couldn't finish it. If you want to be in someone's mind, exclusively, this may be the book for me. Unfortunately for me, I need a little more.

Death in Her Hands comes out later this month on April 21, 2020, and you can purchase HERE.

I was proud that I'd had the pluck to sell the house, pack up, and leave. Truth be told, I would still be back in that old house if it hadn't been for Charlie. I wouldn't have had the courage to move. It was comforting to have an animal, so consistently near and needy, to focus on, to nurture. Just to have another heart beating in the room, a live energy, had cheered me. I hadn't realized how lonely I'd been, and then suddenly I wasn't alone at all. I had a dog. Never again would I be alone, i thought. What a gift to have such a companion, like a child and protector, both, something wiser than me in so many ways, and yet doting, loyal, and affectionate.

Death in Her Hands is the story of Vesta Gul, an older woman who lives alone in a remote cabin since the death of her husband.
Vesta's only company is her dog, Charlie, who she walks regularly. One day while out on their walk, she finds a mysterious note, “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.”
Vesta then becomes obsessed with Magda and finding her killer.
The book is told entirely through Vesta's thoughts as she imagines and creates a life for Madga and draws up a list of suspects, based on her own imaginings..
The effect of the note on Vesta clearly causes some sort of psychological unravelling within her and her thoughts become more random and bizarre as she looks back on her own life with her husband, Walter.
I really did not enjoy this book, and only finished it because it was quite short and I kept hoping it would improve.
The book didn't seem to have any particular point to make, and Vesta's theories about Magda just felt pointless and didn't lead anywhere. It felt tasteless to watch Vesta fall apart from within her own mind, as if we were being asked to mock the silly old woman and her daft ideas. Maybe that was the whole point of the book, but if so it was wasted on me.

In the vein of Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead this novel captures perfectly the senility as well as the wisdom one acquires with age.

This one has grown on me immensely since finishing it and talking with a fellow book buddy. So smart! so layered! what even happened at the end? what was real? WHO WAS REAL? really loved this dark little novel.

*I received a free ARC of this book from The Penguin Press in exchange for an honest review*

While out walking her dog one day, Vesta Gul discovers a mysterious note in the woods. As she slowly devolves into a dangerous obsession with solving the murder of the mysterious “Magda,” the reader is taken on a journey that reveals Vesta’s inner turmoil about her marriage to her late husband and what brought her to her isolated and lowly existence.

This one was a whirlwind. I basically read the entire thing in one day. I was immediately drawn to Vesta despite her unlikeable disposition and I thought there were many darkly funny moments that endeared me to the story and kept me reading as it became more and more clear that Vesta was unreliable. I think Moshfegh writes some of the best dialogue I’ve read. It’s also immensely readable as far as books of this nature (unreliable, dreamy, nonlinear) go.

That being said, I don’t quite know what to make of this book. Coming away from it, I felt a bit taken advantage of as a reader. It feels like ultimately the author is pulling some strange joke on the reader and weaving together a web of allusions to build some type of “in-crowd” audience to be the only ones that can fully appreciate the dark turns it takes. It left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

This is quite the book to read during a pandemic. It's about a woman who lives a very isolated life and is an unreliable narrator. And it reminds me a bit of the memes going around about self-isolation that are like "me 3 weeks into quarantine laughing at the joke my lamp made." She also reminds me of Betty Draper from Mad Men, whose response to perceived disrespect is irrelevant stuff like "I speak Italian, you know!"

It's also an updated version of The Yellow Wallpaper, with a husband who is terrible for reasons that are nothing new but certainly more in the consciousness than ever.

It's also upending the cute old lady solving a murder genre, by being an ugly old lady not solving a not murder.

When I say she's an ugly old lady, that's the part that really grated on me. There are so many ways to characterize someone as awful, and the author seems to have chosen absolutely relentless fat hatred as her way to do it. I don't know why one would choose that path of characterization if it isn't ultimately related to the plot or themes. If she was virulently racist or homophobic, one would expect something to come of that, or for the book to be commenting on it somehow. Not here. Just. so. much. fat hatred. It's extraordinarily lazy writing. And needlessly punishing for readers. I need to read a cute old lady solving a murder to wash the taste of this book out of my mouth.