Death in Her Hands: A meta journey through a less interesting landscape

In this unusual murder mystery, the writer Ottessa Moshfegh shows her hand from the start, which discourages the reader from engaging fully

Ottessa Moshfegh fails to reach the heights of her previous work with Death in Her Hands

METAFICTION

Death in Her Hands

By Ottessa Moshfegh

Jonathan Cape, €17.99

Imagine if, instead of writing this review, I recounted every step of the writing process – the false starts, the deletions, the Google searches. Would you find that winning? Or would you think me irritatingly self-conscious and tell me to get on with it?

Your answer to that question could predict your tolerance for Ottessa Moshfegh’s latest metafictional novel. It concerns an old, isolated ...