Homesick for Another World Audiobook By Ottessa Moshfegh cover art

Homesick for Another World

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Homesick for Another World

By: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan, Richard Poe
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About this listen

Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel, Eileen, was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, selected as a BEA Buzz pick, and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel. And for good reason. There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources. And the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.

©2012 Ottessa Moshfegh (P)2017 Recorded Books
Anthologies Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Short Stories Heartfelt Witty
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Critic reviews

"What distinguishes Ottessa Moshfegh's writing is that unnamable quality that makes a new writer's voice, against all odds and the deadening surround of lyrical postures, sound unique." (Jeffrey Eugenides, in judges' citation for The Paris Review's Plimpton Prize for Fiction)

Editor's Pick

One of my favorite writers
"Since hearing of her through a glowing review from David Sedaris, Ottessa Moshfegh has quickly become one of my favorite writers. Maybe the title is a dead giveaway, but I'm convinced that she holds some otherworldly or mystical power to peek behind the curtain and see life as it really is; vividness on the level of an inescapable, hyper-lit drugstore mirror. Which is to say she holds the highest quality that all great writers share: the ability to make one experience in the world totally anew."
Doug P., Audible Editor

What listeners say about Homesick for Another World

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Disappointing

I have listened to five of these stories, and they just do not engage me. They repel me, but that may be the author’s intent. They are really, really well written, and the author certainly has a novel voice. I can see why they are so highly praised, but the characters in the stories are too callow and casually cruel, even. The author is apparently a point by speaking in the voice of characters who are lost, victims, or abusers. They have no agency and can only act in the form they are molded into; they have no hope. I have a strong tolerance for gritty stories about the highest and lowest of human experience, but where the humanism remains. While I admire these stories, I cannot enjoy or learn from them.