The Nature of Things

Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Thus begins the new novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, she of the mordant prose and biting sense of humor. I loved her last book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation , and   had   eagerly awaited this new one.  I learned that, in fact, Death in Her Hands was not new. She had written it earlier in her career and put it away. I'm not sure why. I'm just glad it is finally here. Those words that begin the novel were written on a note that was left on a trail through some birch woods where recently widowed Vesta Gul, age 72, walks her dog, Charlie. The note is weighed down by some black rocks. Vesta finds the note, picks it up, and so begins her adventure as a murder mystery investigator. She determines to find out who Magda was, where her body is, and who killed her. But there is no body, so what's an investigator to do? Vesta is an avid reader of Agatha Christie novels and she takes her cues...

What a strange yet captivating novel. The unnamed narrator is a beautiful (as she frequently reminds us), privileged, blonde, skinny (size 2) woman living the life of many people's dreams in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She is a recent graduate of Columbia and has an undemanding job at a hip art gallery, but she doesn't really need the job because all her needs are met by an inheritance from her recently deceased parents. And about those parents: Our narrator was their only child but she was not close to either of them, and yet their deaths seem to have untethered her mooring to any sort of need to have a productive life or to be a part of a larger society. There has been a rip in the fabric of her soul and her essence seems to be leaking away in the year 2000. Both her parents were narcissists focused on their own needs and comforts and in this their daughter is very much like them. She sees herself as the focus of the world and everything that happens in ...