Publication Date: 23/06/2022 ISBN: 9781787333826 Category:

Lapvona

Ottessa Moshfegh

Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Publication Date: 23/06/2022 ISBN: 9781787333826 Category:
Hardback

£14.99

Out of stock

Description

Discover the new novel from the author of TikTok sensation My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

In a village in a medieval fiefdom, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot in a power struggle that puts faith to a savage test.

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, will prove to be very thin indeed.

Publisher Review

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. Lapvona promises to chronicle the life of Ina, a blind midwife in a medieval village. Ina’s talent doesn’t stop at childcare, and allows her a special connection with the surrounding natural world. It’s a fascinating premise, and I’m excited to see the yarn Moshfegh is able to weave. * Chicago Review of Books * 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) *

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