Author(s): Ottessa Moshfegh

Novel | Historical

Brace yourself for Lapvona - a rollercoaster ride of depravation and perversion in the singular new novel from Ottessa Moshfegh, author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation

In the land of Lapvona, the lord of the land Villiam is cheating the local villagers of their food, their water, their livelihoods. Grotesque and ridiculous, he marries the pregnant and tongueless ex-nun Agata, whom he believes will make him God, and his son will be the second Christ. It's a land of murder, cannibalism, incest and rape.

Despite all of the characters' individual inadequacies and madness, you find yourself completely engrossed in each character's fate, be it Marek, Jude, Agata, Villiam, Lispeth, Ina, Father Barnabas. It's an anti-fairytale within a fairytale - maybe this is what hell on earth looks like? Is it an indictment of humanity, of religion, of grotesque despots?

An original work of brilliance - singular, funny, horrifying and entertaining in equal measure.

Review: Compelling... Moshfegh's bold venture beyond her comfort zone in Lapvona is a welcome promise of how much more she has to offer American literature today. * Financial Times *
Moshfegh's genius is her ability to rip away the veil, revealing the horrors beneath, in writing so compelling, and bleakly funny, that we can't bear to look away. * i *
A witty, vicious novel.. . Moshfegh is one of our most thrilling chroniclers of the abject * Observer *
What impresses here is not so much Moshfegh's abilities with character or narrative, or even her language . . . as the qualities Lapvona shares with a Francis Bacon painting: depicting in blood-red vitality, without morals or judgment, the human animal in its native chaos. * Guardian *
Moshfegh expertly creates a world with its own superstitions and laws, both timeless and topical. * Oprah Daily *
Deliriously quirky medieval tale . . . Moshfegh brings her trademark fascination with the grotesque to depictions of the pandemic, inequality, and governmental corruption, making them feel both uncanny and all too familiar. It's a triumph. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
Booker-shortlisted Ottessa Moshfegh is likely to out-weird most things published next year - set in a medieval fiefdom, could it be a work of genius, too? -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail, *Books to Look Out For 2022* *
Enjoyably disgusting - an effective...medieval fantasy. * Literary Review *
One of America's most celebrated authors continues her exploration of what fiction has to offer with a further digression from the standard realist purview and into fantasy... a fascinating premise, and I'm excited to see the yarn Moshfegh is able to weave. * Chicago Review of Books *
No one is quite who he first seems in the latest wicked tale from macabre master Moshfegh . . . Sculpting an eerily canny fabular world of contrasts and evil, cartoonish cruelty, in her signature way, Moshfegh conjures a grotesque, disturbing story of gross inequality and senseless strife. * Booklist - Starred Review *
A thrilling dissection of illusion and reality. * SheerLuxe *
Moshfegh writes brilliantly bizarre. Her arresting fourth novel continues this tradition. * Mail on Sunday *
Lapvona is a sublime work in the truest sense - mighty, irrepressible and terrifying. * ArtReview *
[A] truly unique novel. * Times Literary Supplement *
Like a twisted reworking of A Hundred Years of Solitude... readers will no doubt relish its icy intensity and Old Testament grimness. * Spectator *
Weird, unsettling and exciting...Moshfegh writes like a dream - or perhaps a nightmare? * Eastern Daily Press *
A brazen, mordantly comic and decidedly odd examination of corruption... proving to be one of the most provocative and divisive reads of the year. * i, *Summer Reads of 2022* *
Brace yourself for a daring, dizzying fable about corruption. * Culture Whisper, *Summer Reads of 2022* *
A strange, daring book. -- Lauren O'Neill * Scotland on Sunday *
An addictive read... a curious, unjudging journey into humanity's craters. * Face *

Author Biography: Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsell-ers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella, McGlue. She lives in Southern California.