This thirteen-year-old, with his misshapen head and twisted spine, is “a small boy” who has “grown crookedly.” He lives alone with his abusive father, Jude, a hyper-religious and angsty man who “admonished vanity as a cardinal sin.” The two of them punish themselves in efforts to invite more of God’s love, Jude even lashing himself as a ritual. Just below the manor lives the shepherd’s son, Marek. Any time he senses that there are conflicts between farmers down below, he sends in fake bandits to cause trouble: “Terror and grief were good for morale, Villiam believed.” The lord also views such interfering as a game to keep himself entertained. Meanwhile, Villiam is actually behind it all.

When the bandits come to rape and pillage Lapvona, the townspeople hang them, believing they are enacting justice. The fiefdom is governed by Villiam, a greedy, gluttonous lord who lives at the top of a hill that overlooks the village. Lapvona, a small medieval village of vague Eastern European whereabouts, is known for its fertile soil and fruitful crops, where “all the wealth was what could grow in its dirt.” An attack on the village by bandits quickly reveals how the townspeople view themselves, God, and each other, not really trusting any of the above. The characters bleakly reflect the worst in humanity, and grotesque antics dot almost every page-facts that compete with great storytelling and end up creating few opportunities for enjoyment.

There’s grisly death, cannibalism, rape, mysticism, deception, revenge, hints at pedophilia, and very little love. The village is kept subdued by the twin forces of a strict, self-flagellating religion and a cruel feudal system that seeks to disempower residents at every step.Ottessa Moshfegh’s fourth novel, Lapvona, is a gruesome experiment in historical fiction.

Marek’s mother is said to have died when he was a baby he was brought up by his brutal father and a wise-woman, Ina, from whose withered breasts he still suckles as a teenager. The village is beset by disasters, natural and man-made-the story opens with a murderous raid by bandits and much of the second half takes place during a drought. Marek, the hero, is the disabled son of a shepherd, Jude. “Lapvona” is the name of a fictional medieval village in an unnamed European country. It seemed wilfully rebarbative, a rejection of the idea of reading for pleasure. “Death in Her Hands” (2020) was framed as a mystery, yet withheld most of that genre’s satisfactions. “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” (2018) saw a young woman drug herself into insentience with the help of a sinister psychologist. “Eileen”, her acclaimed first novel (published in 2015), told the story of a volatile young woman from New England in the early 1960s, delving into her bitter paranoias and twisted erotic fantasies.

Ottessa moshfegh new novel