You’re in New York, it’s 1962, and you’re in the audience for the premiere of Aaron Copland’s newest work, Connotations. You don’t know it yet, but you’re about to witness one of the most public failures of 20th-century classical music.
Copland, who made his name composing sweeping works of Americana lusciousness, decided write Connotations in twelve-tone, thus making it largely atonal. The piece was an aural Hindenburg. Jacqueline Kennedy, rendered stupefied by the piece, was only able to muster up an “Oh, Mr Copland” when she met the composer afterwards.
I’ve had the disastrous failure of Connotations on my mind ever since I finished reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s new novel. Of course, it would be hyperbolic to compare Copland’s failure to Moshfegh’s, but in the case of both works, their failure is what makes them fascinating.
Death in Her Hands is a murder mystery in Moshfeghland. Vesta Gul, our octogenarian protagonist, is walking in the woods around her house when she comes across a note stating that a girl named Magda has been murdered and nobody will ever discover who did it. Determined that the note is legitimate, Vesta, along with her dog Charlie, dons her deerstalker and sets off to solve the case.
If someone were to make a Moshfegh bingo card, one of the squares would likely read “female protagonist of questionable mental health”. It is Moshfegh’s gift that she is able to summon up these memorable protagonists and portray the world through their often disorientating minds. It is what makes works such as Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation so jarringly memorable.
Vesta Gul is another classic Moshfegh protagonist. Unknowingly living with the trauma imbued in her by her deceased husband Walter, Vesta’s narration is ghostly and liminal, as if she exists on the threshold between this world and another. So it seems utterly unfair that she is stuck in this faux murder-mystery novel, especially since we are never actually sure if there was a murder in the first place.
Early on in her investigation and with absolutely no leads, Vesta decides to consult an online questionnaire that is intended to help novelists flesh out the characters and motives of their murder mystery novels. By simply making up a backstory for Magda and inventing possible motives, Vesta believes she can hone a list of suspects and edge closer towards solving the case.
Whether this is Moshfegh’s way of slyly winking to the camera or not, having the main character of your not-so-great murder mystery novel literally consult a guide for writing murder mystery novels reads as myopic at best. At worst it suggests laziness on behalf of the author, a sort of laziness that smothers this whole novel like sulphur. Coincidences are regular and convenient, the purposeful haziness of the narrative just leads to confusion rather than ambience, and the minimal plot and characters makes the prose feel bulky, as if this were a short story that got out of hand.
Perhaps my reaction to Death in Her Hands would not be as strong if I didn’t view it as such a personal disaster. Moshfegh is one of those rare things: a great American writer. To read My Year of Rest and Relaxation for the first time is to burn all your possessions, shave your head, and pledge your soul to the divine Miss M – the Barefoot Ottessa. Therefore, it comes as no easy task to discuss Death in Her Hands. Let me assure you, I am in agony. Every disparaging word is like an arrow through my flesh. St Sebastian, c’est moi.
But is Death in Her Hands all that it seems? Strangely, woven through the messy plot are some frayed threads of an apparent religious theme. Some are obvious, such as at one point a character mistakenly hearing the name Magda as Magdalene. The town where the novel is set is called Levant. The next town over from Levant is Bethsmane, which, interestingly, if you try to Google brings up a “did you mean Gethsemane?” option. Even Yeats’s The Second Coming makes a brief cameo.
Could all these be clues to some great hidden meaning behind the novel, or are they simply a palimpsest of an earlier draft? There is genuinely no way of knowing.
In her attempt to subvert the murder mystery genre, Ottessa Moshfegh has produced a pretty limp work. Uncharacteristically bland and with a paltry plot that leads nowhere, the novel has to be one of the most bitterly disappointing releases of the year.
Tragically, I must report that the greatest mystery that Moshfegh has produced is the novel itself.
