At Vox, Ottessa Moshfegh discusses her 2018 book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and how it has taken on a life of its own during the pandemic. “Everyone I know has gone through an internal transformation,” Moshfegh says, “And that makes perfect sense. That’s why I write about isolated characters — so they can have a deeper relationship with themselves in the course of the novel. That’s why I’m slightly antisocial to begin with, too. I spend a lot of time having to figure out what’s going on inside. […] In a time where there has been so much trauma and loss, it was a silver lining. Humanity finds purpose where it can. It’s like flowers growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk. People can grow anywhere. That is beautiful.”
Ottessa Moshfegh on Isolated Characters Growing Anywhere
