Homesick for Another World

Moshfegh likes the macabre; in each of these stories, the human body isn't an object of desire. It's an emitter of fluids, smells, growths, etc. There are no angels here. The protagonists in each story grapple with difficult choices and often choose the most morally questionable way forward. Though each piece in this collection stands on its own, they're connected by their examination of humanity's dark side. This is a distinctively (though not deliciously) modern look at ugliness in its many forms.

This book takes you on a rollercoaster through contemporary lives and dilemmas, moving and inspiring you on the way.

From a young woman teacher with a big alcohol problem and a mess of a relationship through a lonely middle-aged male whose use of sex workers damages his ability to relate to regular women, this is a no-holds-barred exploration of how we live now.

Moshfegh shows us the pain, the humour, the sorrow, and the potential joy, in beautifully written prose with a real edge to it.

Times in my life when I’ve made terrible choices, I’ve thought, while making those choices: To hell with you people, I don’t care what you think of me, I’m going to be my own person, screw appearances and reputation. Other times I’ve made terrible choices, I’ve thought: I’m doing what’s expected of me, that’s all. This collection of short stories offers a gallery of complex and warm characters, some of whom disgrace themselves via transgression, some via passivity. 

Moshfegh revels in gross bodily functions, using them almost as an artistic palette. If it stinks, bleeds, sweats, erupts, or otherwise makes you gag, it shows up in her celebrated book of short stories, individually published in Paris Review, The New Yorker, and Granta before being collected in Homesick. Just by its title, the story “Slumming” could stand for the whole. A depressed, middle-aged, New York City schoolteacher sleeps all her summers away, holing up and doing hard drugs in an equally depressed Upstate hamlet, where the local “zombies,” i.e. young opioid dealers, emerge as the most… show more.