I had been looking forward to this book since the minute I heard about it.

I’m a bit fan of Ottessa Moshfegh’s writing. I adored Eileen and really enjoyed My Rest of Relaxation. You know you’re going to get something weird, dark and a bit gross with some interesting characters, living in strange conditions who are ultimately quite unlikeable.

This book is every bit as weird, dark, and a bit gross as her other novels. Beautifully written and another interesting character living on the fringes.

It’s so hard to write about this book because I don’t want to spoil anything, and also because so much of it is ambiguous. It’s the kind of book I want to read hundreds of articles about now I’ve finished it to see how other people have interpreted it.

Death in Her Hands is the story of Vesta, a 72 year old widow who has recently moved to a cabin in the forest with her dog, Charlie, in the middle of nowhere, following the death of her husband. One day while walking her dog she finds a suspicious note that hints at a murder, and decides she should try to solve the mystery.

If this sounds twee, is it not at all. It’s dark and mysterious and sometimes dream-like and at time, maddeningly confusing.

I loved it, and devoured it in a day. I actually wish I’d taken my time over it a bit more, but at the same time I couldn’t put it down,

Really interested and excited to hear more about what other people think of this strange little book.

A work of meta-fictional mystery, 'Death in Her Hands' engages you in a game of questionable reality. A 27-year-old widow, Vesta Gul finds a note during her walk in the woods of a dilapidated cabin she purchased after her husband's death. The note says something about a girl called Magda- an unusual name, 'A name with character', who is now dead, her whereabouts unmentioned. "Whoever had written the note understood that by masking one's peculiarities, one invokes authority." Vesta, to find some semblance in her life devoid of people and technology, starts to fill in the gaps. She then, with a little help from the internet and a lot from her vivid imagination, draws up a murder scene, the list of suspects (that includes the man from the nearby store and her skittish neighbours) and an outlandish tale of love, abuse, betrayal and finally murder.

What starts as a classic murder mystery soon turns into a story being told by an unreliable narrator, agonized by loneliness and monotony and carrying a trauma that arose out of her marriage with Walter, a renowned scientist who liked to seduce young girls (and who still resides and speaks to her from inside her head, not willing to submit his sense of control). There are too many threads to untangle in this tale and it only gets messier. Vesta convinces herself of an actual murder, her suspects hidden in plain sight and that her life is now in danger. She devises various methods to trap the killer, notices subtle hints with questionable existence and finally, tries to blend in with her surroundings in a desperate attempt to protect herself, her way of being fierce and in control, something that was taken from her by her late husband.

One can draw parallels with Eileen, Moshfegh's other novel. The speculative side of Vesta and the vivid imagination of Eileen, both as coping mechanism to escape the harsh reality, both these novels are tricky, effectively misguiding the readers about its purpose and meaning. More reasons to pick this book up!

This was a very unique telling of a story of a 72 year old widowed woman who lives alone with her dog. The feelings of loneliness evoked in this telling were palpable, and she's beginning to navigate an independent life for the first time. She comes across the note saying 'Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.' and it captures her completely. She can't think about anything else, it seems, other than trying to figure out what has happened to Magda, who is Magda, and the story behind the note.

The writing style is strong and bizarre in true Ottessa Moshfegh fashion, and you feel yourself wandering along with Vesta's thoughts— can her perspectives be trusted though?

Thanks to Random House UK for the free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having loved, “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” by Ottessa Moshfegh, I was delighted to get her latest for review.

Our narrator is seventy two year old, widow, Vesta Gul, who has moved to a cabin, in the woods, with her dog, Charlie. Vesta is enjoying the solitude and the peaceful lake, outside her door. Despite the fact that the nearby town is fairly poor, and, throughout the novel, you hear rumours of drug addicts, or other unsocial behaviour, she certainly feels comfortable enough to leave her door open while she walks Charlie.

However, one morning, she comes across a note on the path, held in place by some small, black stones. The note says, “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” Like many of us, I suspect, if we came across such a note, Vesta puts it away and tries to forget it. However, the words begin to haunt her and soon she is imagining who Magda could have been, who could have left the note and what she should do with this knowledge…

I must admit that I think Ottessa Moshfegh could write a shopping list and I would be engrossed, so much do I love her style. This is a poignant, moving and melancholic read. You can imagine the cabin, the water lapping, the nearby shop with the owner, who had suffered a ‘hunting accident,’ the distant neighbours. Throughout the book, Vesta has very few interactions outside of her own head, but I was utterly enthralled by this. It has an excellent sense of atmosphere and would be an excellent choice for reading groups, as there is so much to discuss. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

It’s a bold statement these days to have a ‘favourite author’. I am not a child who needs to form an identity based on the colours and foods I like, nor a teenager seeking to find my place by putting a stake in the ground with the bands and films I love. But for quite some time, I have had a tentative urge to call Ottessa Moshfegh my favourite author, following my desire to talk endlessly about her work, to recommend it to anyone regardless of their tastes, reading habits or desire to accept a recommendation. So to say that I was excited for Death In Her Hands is something of an understatement. And I can confidently state that this book has cemented my understated fandom, although not for the reasons I expected.

For fellow fans of Moshfegh’s previous work, there’s a lot of familiarity here. As I, among many, have breathlessly stated many times, she has a striking ability to fill absences with intention, and with plot. Just as much of ‘the action’ of My Year of Rest and Relaxation takes place while the unnamed protagonist is asleep or unconscious, until the very end of the novel, the only action for much of Death in her Hands is that an elderly woman eats and drinks alone with her dog, goes for a drive, goes for a walk, goes to the library, goes to the shop. All of the plot that drives us forward takes place in her head. This is parallel to Eileen, too, in which we are promised a crime, only to spend three quarters of the novel on a psychological analysis of our protagonist, the findings of which are quite unrelated to the ultimate crime itself.

That, too, is the other familiarity you’ll find in this if you’ve read Moshfegh’s other work. She masters a certain type of unreliable intimacy, usually cemented by disgust, the grotesque. She positions us close enough to our narrators that we feel they have truly ‘let us in’. Why would we question the motives of someone bringing us so close that we experience their bad habits through a magnified mirror; the vivid vulgarity of smells and textures that come with an intense close-up view.

“I used my fingers to pick apart the cold, coagulated chicken, not caring that the gelatinous fat was clinging to my lips and gumming up my teeth.”

We are on the inside. We are at once in the narrator’s mind—in this case, Vesta, the novel’s 72-year-old narrator, living alone in a cabin in the woods—yet somehow unable to believe a word we are told from this proximity. It is a unique kind of narration that is at once honest and completely unbelievable. Most of the characters we encounter are not included for their actions or interactions with the narrator, but for how Vesta, our protagonist and narrator, inserts them into her own assessment of the situation—most obviously when it comes to Magda, the alleged dead body at the heart of this mystery. We are examining, constantly looking for a truth to arise, although what we are given is Vesta’s truth as she sees it. It is as satisfying as it is inevitable. And it’s that that reminds me that you don’t read Moshfegh for the truth, but the paths you’re taken down on the way to reaching it. The truth will always come, although not always how we expect it to.

Moshfegh is the queen of the space of isolation—a topic some readers may find too close to home in this stifling time of solitary uncertainty. But one cannot deny the mastery Moshfegh has for presenting us with internal monologues; that which is left when the trappings of the everyday are gone. Through imagined conversations with the responseless radio host Pastor Jimmy and her faithful companion dog Charlie, the imagined retorts built from the memories of her deceased husband, Walter, we are a significant chunk of the novel through before we engage a character who broaches on Vesta in a physical space, and not just in her mind, or her ‘mindspace’, as she calls it. A sacred space, for someone who deals in solitude with the expert handling that Moshfegh offers. (Perhaps I read too much into novels, but as I read this I wondered if Moshfegh is just a lonely person. Then I read this article she wrote about life in the Covid19 lockdown - and was relieved to find that this is very much not the case.)

Much like with Eileen, those seeking a tidy whodunnit, a crime thriller, will likely be disappointed. The novel opens with a declaration that seems to set up the events that follow as a simple murder mystery; nothing more, nothing less.

“Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.”

Like any reader, I went in looking to solve the mystery, despite knowing Moshfegh’s modus operandi, knowing that is surely not all I could be for. I looked for the clues. Perhaps this time might be different, I thought. And I fell right into her trap.

I must admit that the novel didn’t grip me from a plot perspective, beyond the first half. I laughed out loud as I read the following lines from chapter five:

“I was often tempted to abandon books if they flailed along too slowly. The muddled middle, a reviewer had called it one day on the radio.”

Because although it was moving slowly, what kept me turning pages at a rapid speed in the second half was from a craft perspective.

It says more about me than her that I wanted more of the iconic millennial malaise of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, or the small town stakes of Eileen, and was instead offered something that at times I wondered if it was too rich for my palette. Moshfegh has perfected what she does, and the curse of becoming a novelist people revere is that they think they understand you. Armed with more knowledge than Vesta, we are equipped with the tools of context for the task of solving the mystery we have opened up as readers—what’s going on in this novel. But then even this seems knowing, intentional.

Because wrapped up in this mystery is a meditation on art, on creation, on specifically ‘creating a novel’. It is wrapped in the guise of a mystery, perfectly exemplifying how we as readers are guided only by what the writer gives us, a gift from their mind. We are passive and wandering down fruitless paths, accepting red herrings like gifts, and looking for the meaning in everything from a purchased object, to the layers of a name. We do exactly what Vesta does with the clues offered to us.

“Things might be theoretical, that was true. I may be imagining it all, but it still hurt.”

I often think about how writers, once they have run out of life to draw from, inevitably turn to writing about the only thing they have left: the very act of writing. But for Moshfegh, this is not a last resort. It is another literary gift, and now begins my long wait for the next one.

I knew that a novel by Ottessa Moshfegh wasn’t going to be run of the mill and being a big fan of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I was excited to start reading Death in her Hands. I think where I was thrown with this book is that it’s described as a murder mystery, but that should be applied in a loose, theoretical way. So I was waiting, waiting for the reveal / event to happen and… it didn’t… in the traditional sense.

That’s not to say it’s not a fantastic read though, it very much is. My advice to you is: start Death in her Hands without that preconception. Just go with the flow and enjoy what Death in her Hands does with the murder mystery story. In its own very unique way.

So what is the story?

Vesta Gul is truly a fascinating character: a woman just coming into her own. 72 years old and recently widowed, moves to an isolated cabin on the edge of a lake to mark this new chapter in her life. She has her dog, Charlie to keep her company. He is just as important a character in the book as anyone else.

It all starts when Vesta finds this note in woods while out on a dog walk:

'Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.'

Vesta becomes obsessed with Magda. Determined to find out who she is, if she is really dead and, if she is, who killed her. This is where Vesta takes an unorthodox approach. Vesta is creating her story within this story, solving a murder mystery that may or may not exist, Googling how to write a murder mystery novel and promptly coming to the conclusion that, ‘Mystery was an artless genre, that much was obvious.’ We follow Magda as she tries to solve the mystery.

Death in her Hands explores loneliness. Thanks to her controlling and belittling husband Walter, Vesta has no friends except her dog, so she is lonely. This story explores how that loneliness, merged with her newfound independence manifests itself. In her own words, Vesta has started to think about things differently too:

'Since his death, I’d grown to be more poetic in my thinking.'

The made-up word mindspace is used about 30 times through the book, it’s one of Vesta’s favourites and a key theme: celebrating the power of imagination, and whatever road that eventually may take you down…

I love Otessa Moshfegh’s writing style – it's effortless while being sharp and cutting and that really gives this novel its memorable punch. We are given hints and clues throughout as to what’s actually happening and the bold, powerful ending I did not see coming… please add this book to your TBR and see for yourself! You won’t regret it.

I find Ottessa Moshfegh and I are intrigued by similar scenarios and themes, which is why I am drawn to her books. So far I've only read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and this Death in Her Hands - I have yet to try Eileen, but I really like her quirky perspective in life.
In both novels the female protagonist is a woman who is detached from her environment and looking in on life as if from a supposedly neutral ground. As the story progresses though you realise more and more what has led the protagonist to be in such an isolated position. In actual fact the protagonists of the two books are quite dissimilar and the author manages to give a good sense of Vesta and her interiority.
This book is quite interesting on two levels. On the one hand we have the individual story of the protagonist, which engages with issues such as ageing and missed opportunities, death, patriarchy, loneliness. On the other level we have an exploration of the creative process of fiction writing, its relation with solitude and more generally the power of imagination.

Starting from the unlikely premise of Vesna on her daily walk with her dog Charlie finding a note announcing the death of a certain Magda, the author builds an increasingly distorted account of Vesna's obsessive and paranoid attempt to build a story to accompany the mysterious note.
Her findings are unavoidably related to her own deeper preoccupations and her coming to terms with the life she has lived up to recently with her husband of several decades. Walter, a German émigré, is exposed more and more as a controlling, egotistical and psychologically abusive partner. Vesna, only through the weaving of her own biography with that of the murder victim, is able to finally articulate and take stock of her own victimhood. A significant and symbolic role is given here by Moshfegh to Vesna's dog and Vesna's relationship to her dog.

So why three stars only?

As with My Year of Rest and Relaxation, the ideas are great, really interesting and stimulating. But come mid-way through the novel, I find myself running out of interest and thinking that the plot device used has exhausted its course. The point to make has been made, the writing though is not strong enough to carry the book forward. Perhaps the whole experience feels purely intellectual with no significant emotional pull. Though there is a dramatic development in the last third of the novel and an unexpected turn, I didn't find I cared enough. I suspect Ottessa Moshfegh may just write a masterpiece one day, which is why I will keep on reading her, but this ain't it (yet).


Many thanks to Scribe UK and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#DeathinherHands #NetGalley

trigger warning
<spoiler> grief, the dog dies, mental illness </spoiler>

Vesta Gul finds a mysterious note in the firest whilst walking her dog, Charlie, that says <i>Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body.</i>

Our protagonist becomes obsessed with this note, but instead of telling anyone, she decides to take matters in her own hand - by inventing the story of Magda.

As the story progresses, the reader is left wondering how reliable a narrator Vesta is, which parts of what she tells you are real, if any, and which are part of the narrative. This is especially interesting in regards to Walter, her late husband, whose death enabled her to move out here on insurance money, which, in turn, is the reason for her lack of friends or people known to her in the area.

The other character that is there, physically present, for the majority of the book, is Charlie, and he may be the reason why I liked this book a lot and suddenly stopped liking it at the end.
I yearn for another person's perspective on what happened, though I get that it's done on purpose that you only get glimpses of other people's points of views on this. On her.

Having read My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I came for the weird, and I got it.
I am sure my mind will wander back to this tale for quite a while, and I'll pick up more of her books when I can.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

This was a very interesting book where you don't know what's going on, so I'd highly suggest not reading blurbs and reviews, so you can enjoy it for yourself.
I enjoy Moshfegh's writing and style and this one didn't disappoint as well. The narration was fantastic.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

This was an interesting take that combines real life and fiction and subverts and blurs the lines between them. This isn't a mystery or a thriller novel. Rather it works on the basic tenets of such novels and subverts them till we are not sure what is what. I had read Eileen before and so went in with an idea of what kind of writing to expect.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-copy.

An interesting and dark tale, a cross between a murder mystery and a book of gothic self discovery. Vesta is a 72 year old widow living in an abandoned former scout camp in the middle of nowhere. She is left alone with her dog Charlie, her memories and her missed opportunities. Until one day, on a walk in the woods by her house, Vesta discovers a note about a death.

This story is compelling, partly just because of the great writing and partly because of the invention of a confusing lonely character. Vesta's thoughts are all we have to go on, but can her observations be trusted?

Like many others, I have been eagerly awaiting Moshfegh’s latest novel following the success of My Year of Rest and Relaxation two years ago. I was lucky enough to receive an advance review copy through the site NetGalley and I am happy to report I was not disappointed.

For those who do not know, NetGalley is an online platform that allows booksellers and influencers to directly request digital copies of upcoming books direct from publishers. It is an amazing way to get a hold of some of my most anticipated reads for free, all in exchange for some feedback.

Anyway, back to the review! ‘Death in Her Hands’, like Mottessa’s previous novels, is a character driven deep dive into the complexities of an individuals’ thoughts, perception and perspectives.

It follows Vesta Gul as she settles into a new small town following the death of her husband. Nestled on the edge of the wood in an old Girl Scout cabin, she soon acclimatises to the peaceful monotony of daily life with only her beloved dog Charlie as company. This all changes on a daily walk when Vesta stumbles upon a note, neatly pinned to the ground. It reads, “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”. What frames itself as the perfect set-up for a classic murder mystery novel, however, is anything but: no body is found, no clues discovered, no real suspects identified.

Instead we follow Vesta’s descent into obsession, and maybe insanity, as she invents elaborate scenarios to explain her find. Through Vesta’s mind we encounter a very real Magda, one whose life reflects everything Vesta is yet to confront about her own: her condescending late husband who spent his life preying on vulnerable young students, a greedy and lazy Working Class whom Vesta feel both alienated and disgusted by, a desire to be bold and brave and listened to.

‘Death in Her Hands’ is a novel that continues to impact its reader long after you close it’s pages. Reflection only enhances its complexities and questions. It will undeniably be devoured by existing fans but its trappings as a murder mystery is sure to tempt many more to discover Moshfegh’s high literary talents.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage. for the arc of Death In Her Hands written by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Thanks to Ottessa Moshfegh for writing such a great book.

Involves a widow who is 72 years old and ilives with her dog Charlie in a cabin by a lake. She's out walking when she stumbles upon a note which read "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body"..... Thing is there is no such evidence of a body.. so she is ultimately obsessed in working out of the mystery of Magda. She ends up making up a whole back story about Magda, like who she was as a person, what she was like and what happened to her. It goes as far as meeting strangers and giving them roles in her narrative. Basically a story within a story....

There are some very creepy and Claustrophobic scenes which are quite scary. One of the controversial things is that she goes on about this woman hating overweight people... and about a killing of an animal which was rather disturbing.

Apart from the disturbing bits it was a great and had many twists and turns some confusions at times in which i had to re read some lines more than a few times to understand it.

4 Stars⭐⭐⭐⭐
recommend

Death in Her Hands begins intriguingly, when a woman finds a note in the woods: Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.

But there’s no body, just the note, weighted down with little rocks. Vesta—the 70-year-old widow who discovered it—fancies herself a sleuth and becomes obsessed with Magda but her ‘investigation’ resembles a creative writing exercise: she simply invents the suspects and circumstances leading to Magda’s death. Vesta admits that the note is the closest thing to a social call she’s had in a long time—her’s is a solitary life.

So the reader begins to wonder, what’s up with Vesta? Is she unraveling? Maybe she wrote the note herself? What exactly is going on?

But this is no mere ‘unreliable narrator’ trope, and as the novel progresses it becomes more and more slippery. Vesta reveals more about her ambivalent feelings towards her late husband, and his controlling and cruel nature. And it becomes clear that this is not a whodunit, but a psychological study of grief, regret and facing one’s own mortality.

Slow-moving, atmospheric, with a strong, distinctive voice in the eccentric Vesta, Death in Her Hands is a head-scratcher, in a good way. 4 stars.

My thanks to the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
According to the blurb this is A triumphant blend of horror, suspense and pitch-black comedy. Our recently widowed heroine whilst out walking her dog finds a hand written note pinned to the ground by black pebbles, announcing the death of Magda. What follows is a quirky strange tale of obsession, where instead of simply handing the note to the police, she sets about solving the mystery herself. Well written with an assortment of odd characters this is an engaging read. However whilst having no problem finishing the book, I was ultimately disappointed, and certainly found it lacking in horror or real suspense.

Eileen meets Janina, as Ottessa goes meta.

An elderly woman of Eastern European origins, living on her own in something of a backwater, sets out to investigate a murder mystery largely of her own invention. She falls out with the local police and with the locals who see her as an eccentric oddball and she in turn despises as fat and stupid (as we see from her first party viewpoint). Her dog disappears, she invents names for her neighbours, religious references abound.

Its hard to read the blurb for this book – and even harder to read it, without immediately thinking of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” – so much so that a couple of times I had the odd sensation of thinking I had already read passages (particularly those relating to the narrators interactions with others where she occasionally sees how she appears to others and we get a glimpse of the vulnerability behind her bluster).

But this is not in any way to accuse the author of plagiarism or unattributed borrowing (in this book which was apparently first drafted back in 2015), because the signs are made even more obvious for a reader when the narrator of this story Vesta) invents her first protagonist – one who she decides has left the note “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here his her dead body” which starts the book and the murder mystery investigation. Because the protagonist is named by her “Blake”.

Later when Vesta accidentally stumbles across a copy of William Blake’s collected poems with a spookily suitable poem underlined which happens to include: “They stumble all night over the bones of the dead”, two things occur: the reader becomes clearer on what is going on with Vesta and at the next level up, the reader becomes aware what Moshfegh is doing.

And the meta-approach extends, I think, to Moshfegh’s own work. On the shortlisting of Eileen, Moshfegh gave a rather infamous Guardian interview (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/16/ottessa-moshfegh-interview-book-started-as-joke-man-booker-prize-shortlist) in which she claimed that she initially wrote “Eileen” using the template of a how-to-write-a-bestseller guide. An interview she now says harmed her chance for the prize and “made it sound like I just filled in the blanks and got lucky.”

So what else does Magda do in the library – but look up (via Ask Jeeves – a nice touch, reflecting the general fustiness of Magda) a guide to “Top Tips for Mystery Writers” and downloads a “character profile questionnaire” which Moshfegh then uses via Vesta to develop the character of Magda.

All this is shot through with Moshfegh’s own style – Vesta (of course) has to omit washing/showering for days at a time and the dog (of course) is flatulent.

I have to say both “Eileen” and “Drive Your Plow” were books I particularly disliked but I did find myself drawn to their mash-up.

My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.

I had no expectations, but the description was intriguing from a novelist I'd not previously heard of.

Sadly, from the outset this story seemed tiresome and rambling, the slightly lost thoughts of an old lady not quite with it, and obviously suffering from grief and loneliness. There was nothing about her character that drew me in, nor wanted me to know who Magda was, and what was behind the mysterious note left in the woods.

I did manage 40% of the novel before I gave up, and turned to the last 15% to find the answer. Again. rather than providing answers, I'm afraid despite the slight shock factor, there's nothing helpful I have to say. Which is a shame because I am led to believe Ottessa Moshfegh's previous novels are very good.

I've really tried with Ottessa Moshfegh. McGlue sounded decent in blurb but was thuddingly dull in reading. My Year of Rest and Relaxation also sounded good in concept and read ok for a while but failed to go anywhere. Death in Her Hands is my last attempt at this author because this was another dull narrative that went nowhere. Rambling protagonist makes up her own story in her head and nothing much happens for most of this naval-gazing drear. Utterly mystifying what people see in this author - I certainly can't see it and can't recommend not bothering with her books enough.

For a long while I thought I really wouldn’t like Ottessa Moshfegh’s books. At first glance, they just don’t sound like something I’d enjoy reading. Then I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and loved how she proved me completely wrong. She’s such an intelligent, subversive, audacious writer. Perhaps not for everyone but I now eagerly anticipate her new work.

Death in Her Hands is both a deep character study of a slowly unravelling mind and an exploration of storytelling and imagination. Its protagonist, Vesta is a lonely 70-year old widow living in an isolated cabin who becomes obsessed with a murder that may or may not have been committed. The banalities of her daily life contrast heavily with the inner workings of her mind as she constructs an incredibly detailed story of the victim’s life and sets about solving the supposed murder. Reality and imagination bleed into each other, building suspense and unsettling the reader as Vesta herself becomes more unsettled and paranoid. Recollections of her married life slowly reveal a different side to this initially unlikeable character but then, she’s not exactly a reliable narrator.

And if the story within the story weren’t meta enough, there are also obvious and deliberate similarities with Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, in the setting, the protagonist, use of Slavic folklore (Vesta was goddess of spring in old Slavic mythology I think), William Blake. I thought Drive Your Plow good but Death in Her Hand is something else, clever, utterly compelling and convincing. Hats off to Moshfegh even though it occasionally felt a little indulgent. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

My thanks to Random House, Vintage and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Death in Her Hands.

The first line of "Death in Her Hands" presents us with a challenge or puzzle: <i>Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.</i>

This enigmatic confession/defence is anonymously handwritten on a note left in a path in the woods, outside the New England town of Levant. It is discovered by Vesta, a seventy-two-year-old widow who has recently moved to a cabin in the area, following the death of her husband Walter. Vesta Gul (pronounced “like the ocean bird”) leads a solitary life, her only company being her dog Charlie. The note – with no body to go with it – sparks Vesta’s overactive imagination. She starts building theories as to who “Magda” might have been and who might have killed her. She gives Magda flesh and blood and a backstory. As Vesta becomes increasingly confused, the divide between reality and Vesta’s imagination becomes increasingly blurred, as the characters she invents step into the novel itself.

The result is, at one level, a witty piece of meta-fiction which borrows and satirizes the tropes of crime novels. There is a brilliant scene in which Vesta uses the “Ask Jeeves” search engine on a computer terminal at the local library:

<i>“Is Magda dead?” I Asked Jeeves. What I found were 626,000 web pages, the first dozen devoted to a tragic story of how a young British fan of what seemed to be a highly successful all-boy band…dropped dead one morning waiting for the school bus.</i>

Vesta later asks “How does one solve a murder mystery?”. The search results are close to advice on writing a crime novel…. “Make a list of suspects. Ask each suspect outright “Why did you murder [victim]?” Base your strategy around finding the liar.” Indeed, Vesta soon stumbles upon a website with “top tips for mystery writers” although she is dismissive of what she finds there:

<i>“Reading lots of mysteries is essential.” That seemed like ridiculous advice. The last thing anyone should do is stuff her head full of other people’s ways of doing things. That would take all the fun out. Does one study children before copulating to produce one? Does one perform a through examination of others’ feces before rushing to the toilet? Does one go around asking people to recount their dreams before going to sleep? No. Composing a mystery was a creative endeavour, not some calculate procedure. If you know how the story ends, why even begin?</i>

The real mystery is Vesta herself and her role in the novel: is she an investigator, a sort of eccentric Miss Marple, or is she a "conceptual" author figure, making up the story we’re reading?

Vesta increasingly reveals details about her former life as the wife of Walter Gul, a German epistemologist of Turkish descent who, it seems, treated his wife as merely a pretty decoration to take to parties, whilst bedding a succession of young students. We learn about her daily hurts, the decades of being treated disdainfully and patronizingly, a life of suspicion and lies. Although, of course, with a narrator like Vesta, we can never be sure of where truth ends and fiction begins.

In true “mystery” fashion, Moshfegh throws several red herrings into the mix. Except that in the case of this novel, these do not relate to the plot, but to the meaning behind the novel itself. There seem to be certain autobiographical elements (Vesta has Croatian roots and Moshfegh herself is half-Croatian), references to the poetry of Blake and Yeats, as well as puzzling religious references: the murder victim is called “Magda(len)”, there is a town called Bethsmane (Bethlehem + Gethsemane) and one of the potential suspects is a policeman called “Ghod”. All this seems to point to some obscure gnostic truth. But my view is these are all games which Moshfegh likes to play. She has herself described her novel as a “loneliness story” – and perhaps that’s the kernel of the book. Behind the black comedy and the stylistic pyrotechnics, this is a strangely touching novel about the loneliness of a long-suffering woman.

4.5*