Lapvona

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*

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

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)

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

A witty, vicious novel.. . Moshfegh is one of our most thrilling chroniclers of the abject

Observer (USA)

Enjoyably disgusting - an effective...medieval fantasy.

Literary 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 thrilling dissection of illusion and reality.

SheerLuxe

Moshfegh writes brilliantly bizarre. Her arresting fourth novel continues this tradition.

Mail on Sunday

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

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

Despite its medieval milieu, Lapvona is a quintessential Moshfegh book. It has the warped earthiness of the author's first two novels... [and] a powerful undercurrent of allegory.

Economist

Strange, subversive and utterly unique.

Grazia

Lapvona is an interrogation of faith, greed, and abuse - yet Moshfegh's dark humour cackles right through it.

Independent, *Summer Reads of 2022*

This unsettling read is unlike anything else.

Grazia, *Summer Reads of 2022*

[Lapvona] is unlike anything she's [Moshfegh] written before... a rollercoaster ride exploring the themes of poverty, religion and greed.

Hello!, *Summer Reads of 2022*

Moshfegh's novel is bitterly comic, compelling reading, ever-pulsing with perversity.

Big Issue

[A] strange, disturbingly funny faux-historical novel.

Observer, *Books of the Year*

[A] wry, bewitching and slightly dark novel.

Monocle, *Christmas Gift Guide 2022*

Moshfegh is one of the most original and astute young novelists working today.

Daily Telegraph

The superabundantly talented...Moshfegh's sentences are piercing and vixenish... she is always a deep pleasure to read.

New York Times (on MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION)