My thanks to the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
According to the blurb this is A triumphant blend of horror, suspense and pitch-black comedy. Our recently widowed heroine whilst out walking her dog finds a hand written note pinned to the ground by black pebbles, announcing the death of Magda. What follows is a quirky strange tale of obsession, where instead of simply handing the note to the police, she sets about solving the mystery herself. Well written with an assortment of odd characters this is an engaging read. However whilst having no problem finishing the book, I was ultimately disappointed, and certainly found it lacking in horror or real suspense.

Eileen meets Janina, as Ottessa goes meta.

An elderly woman of Eastern European origins, living on her own in something of a backwater, sets out to investigate a murder mystery largely of her own invention. She falls out with the local police and with the locals who see her as an eccentric oddball and she in turn despises as fat and stupid (as we see from her first party viewpoint). Her dog disappears, she invents names for her neighbours, religious references abound.

Its hard to read the blurb for this book – and even harder to read it, without immediately thinking of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” – so much so that a couple of times I had the odd sensation of thinking I had already read passages (particularly those relating to the narrators interactions with others where she occasionally sees how she appears to others and we get a glimpse of the vulnerability behind her bluster).

But this is not in any way to accuse the author of plagiarism or unattributed borrowing (in this book which was apparently first drafted back in 2015), because the signs are made even more obvious for a reader when the narrator of this story Vesta) invents her first protagonist – one who she decides has left the note “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here his her dead body” which starts the book and the murder mystery investigation. Because the protagonist is named by her “Blake”.

Later when Vesta accidentally stumbles across a copy of William Blake’s collected poems with a spookily suitable poem underlined which happens to include: “They stumble all night over the bones of the dead”, two things occur: the reader becomes clearer on what is going on with Vesta and at the next level up, the reader becomes aware what Moshfegh is doing.

And the meta-approach extends, I think, to Moshfegh’s own work. On the shortlisting of Eileen, Moshfegh gave a rather infamous Guardian interview (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/16/ottessa-moshfegh-interview-book-started-as-joke-man-booker-prize-shortlist) in which she claimed that she initially wrote “Eileen” using the template of a how-to-write-a-bestseller guide. An interview she now says harmed her chance for the prize and “made it sound like I just filled in the blanks and got lucky.”

So what else does Magda do in the library – but look up (via Ask Jeeves – a nice touch, reflecting the general fustiness of Magda) a guide to “Top Tips for Mystery Writers” and downloads a “character profile questionnaire” which Moshfegh then uses via Vesta to develop the character of Magda.

All this is shot through with Moshfegh’s own style – Vesta (of course) has to omit washing/showering for days at a time and the dog (of course) is flatulent.

I have to say both “Eileen” and “Drive Your Plow” were books I particularly disliked but I did find myself drawn to their mash-up.

My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.

I had no expectations, but the description was intriguing from a novelist I'd not previously heard of.

Sadly, from the outset this story seemed tiresome and rambling, the slightly lost thoughts of an old lady not quite with it, and obviously suffering from grief and loneliness. There was nothing about her character that drew me in, nor wanted me to know who Magda was, and what was behind the mysterious note left in the woods.

I did manage 40% of the novel before I gave up, and turned to the last 15% to find the answer. Again. rather than providing answers, I'm afraid despite the slight shock factor, there's nothing helpful I have to say. Which is a shame because I am led to believe Ottessa Moshfegh's previous novels are very good.

I've really tried with Ottessa Moshfegh. McGlue sounded decent in blurb but was thuddingly dull in reading. My Year of Rest and Relaxation also sounded good in concept and read ok for a while but failed to go anywhere. Death in Her Hands is my last attempt at this author because this was another dull narrative that went nowhere. Rambling protagonist makes up her own story in her head and nothing much happens for most of this naval-gazing drear. Utterly mystifying what people see in this author - I certainly can't see it and can't recommend not bothering with her books enough.

For a long while I thought I really wouldn’t like Ottessa Moshfegh’s books. At first glance, they just don’t sound like something I’d enjoy reading. Then I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and loved how she proved me completely wrong. She’s such an intelligent, subversive, audacious writer. Perhaps not for everyone but I now eagerly anticipate her new work.

Death in Her Hands is both a deep character study of a slowly unravelling mind and an exploration of storytelling and imagination. Its protagonist, Vesta is a lonely 70-year old widow living in an isolated cabin who becomes obsessed with a murder that may or may not have been committed. The banalities of her daily life contrast heavily with the inner workings of her mind as she constructs an incredibly detailed story of the victim’s life and sets about solving the supposed murder. Reality and imagination bleed into each other, building suspense and unsettling the reader as Vesta herself becomes more unsettled and paranoid. Recollections of her married life slowly reveal a different side to this initially unlikeable character but then, she’s not exactly a reliable narrator.

And if the story within the story weren’t meta enough, there are also obvious and deliberate similarities with Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, in the setting, the protagonist, use of Slavic folklore (Vesta was goddess of spring in old Slavic mythology I think), William Blake. I thought Drive Your Plow good but Death in Her Hand is something else, clever, utterly compelling and convincing. Hats off to Moshfegh even though it occasionally felt a little indulgent. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

My thanks to Random House, Vintage and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Death in Her Hands.

The first line of "Death in Her Hands" presents us with a challenge or puzzle: <i>Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.</i>

This enigmatic confession/defence is anonymously handwritten on a note left in a path in the woods, outside the New England town of Levant. It is discovered by Vesta, a seventy-two-year-old widow who has recently moved to a cabin in the area, following the death of her husband Walter. Vesta Gul (pronounced “like the ocean bird”) leads a solitary life, her only company being her dog Charlie. The note – with no body to go with it – sparks Vesta’s overactive imagination. She starts building theories as to who “Magda” might have been and who might have killed her. She gives Magda flesh and blood and a backstory. As Vesta becomes increasingly confused, the divide between reality and Vesta’s imagination becomes increasingly blurred, as the characters she invents step into the novel itself.

The result is, at one level, a witty piece of meta-fiction which borrows and satirizes the tropes of crime novels. There is a brilliant scene in which Vesta uses the “Ask Jeeves” search engine on a computer terminal at the local library:

<i>“Is Magda dead?” I Asked Jeeves. What I found were 626,000 web pages, the first dozen devoted to a tragic story of how a young British fan of what seemed to be a highly successful all-boy band…dropped dead one morning waiting for the school bus.</i>

Vesta later asks “How does one solve a murder mystery?”. The search results are close to advice on writing a crime novel…. “Make a list of suspects. Ask each suspect outright “Why did you murder [victim]?” Base your strategy around finding the liar.” Indeed, Vesta soon stumbles upon a website with “top tips for mystery writers” although she is dismissive of what she finds there:

<i>“Reading lots of mysteries is essential.” That seemed like ridiculous advice. The last thing anyone should do is stuff her head full of other people’s ways of doing things. That would take all the fun out. Does one study children before copulating to produce one? Does one perform a through examination of others’ feces before rushing to the toilet? Does one go around asking people to recount their dreams before going to sleep? No. Composing a mystery was a creative endeavour, not some calculate procedure. If you know how the story ends, why even begin?</i>

The real mystery is Vesta herself and her role in the novel: is she an investigator, a sort of eccentric Miss Marple, or is she a "conceptual" author figure, making up the story we’re reading?

Vesta increasingly reveals details about her former life as the wife of Walter Gul, a German epistemologist of Turkish descent who, it seems, treated his wife as merely a pretty decoration to take to parties, whilst bedding a succession of young students. We learn about her daily hurts, the decades of being treated disdainfully and patronizingly, a life of suspicion and lies. Although, of course, with a narrator like Vesta, we can never be sure of where truth ends and fiction begins.

In true “mystery” fashion, Moshfegh throws several red herrings into the mix. Except that in the case of this novel, these do not relate to the plot, but to the meaning behind the novel itself. There seem to be certain autobiographical elements (Vesta has Croatian roots and Moshfegh herself is half-Croatian), references to the poetry of Blake and Yeats, as well as puzzling religious references: the murder victim is called “Magda(len)”, there is a town called Bethsmane (Bethlehem + Gethsemane) and one of the potential suspects is a policeman called “Ghod”. All this seems to point to some obscure gnostic truth. But my view is these are all games which Moshfegh likes to play. She has herself described her novel as a “loneliness story” – and perhaps that’s the kernel of the book. Behind the black comedy and the stylistic pyrotechnics, this is a strangely touching novel about the loneliness of a long-suffering woman.

4.5*

Thank you Net Galley. A fascinating read by Ms Moshfegh. I had read a number of her stories and am halfway through listening to one of her books. I like her style and enjoyed this book very much. An easy and interesting read.

An eery book about an elderly woman, Vesta, who has moved to a remote cabin after the death of her husband, who finds a note about someone called Magda who has been killed. Vesta becomes consumed by the narrative she constructs around this note, and the line between fantasy and reality becomes more and more blurred as the novel goes on and the reader learns more about Vesta, her husband and her dog Charlie. I raced through the second half of the book as the tension reaches a crescendo and my fear for Vesta and particularly Charlie increased, but I found the ending was as shrouded in ambiguity as the rest of the novel.

A decent story but I felt it dragged a little and I had to force myself to finish. Not for me sorry x

Unfortunately, the concept was more interesting than the book itself, which means that the execution let me down, a lot; I have no problem with meandering plot narratives, and, though Moshfegh writes beautifully, "Death in her hands" felt average, at best.

I think this is going to be a very polarizing book which will evoke strong reactions. I didn't enjoy this book. The idea behind it was solid and i was keen to dive into it but i was very disappointed. This just didn't deliver and i can understand why people are so let down after the authors brilliant last book.

This book is one of a kind - the internal monologue of an increasingly frail woman, (mentally and physically) with a macabre, dark imagination. In a way it was desperately sad to be so involved in her confusion and decline, but it had some wonderfully humorous moments, and her one and only relationship (that with her beloved dog) was sensitively conveyed. The ending was a shock and left some questions unanswered, but the writing here is brilliantly imaginative and although Vesta, the protagonist, is not a particularly likeable character, I found her convoluted and bizarre internal world utterly compelling.

This was a great follow up by the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The tone of the writing is somewhat similar and it had a similar energy to it that meant as a reader we got to experience the slow rollout of the action. This may not be the longest book but it explores some really interesting ideas. Moshfegh makes the world come alive with the writing and I was hooked from the first page until the end. The idea of who the body is was explored well and this is one of the best elements of this.

Listen, I love Ottessa Moshfegh. LOVE her. Love her terrible, brilliant fucked up characters but this wasn't what I wanted. It's one of those books you have to give in to to get through it. It's meta, it's weird, there's a dog that plays a central role in the story (so no surprises what happens to the dog), it unravels unbearably slowly and then quickly and then all at once. I'm kinda mad at this book because it felt like a test for the reader and I don't want to be tested, or at least not like this.

I am never sure what to think of Ottessa Moshfegh's novels - some I definitely loved (Eileen), some I am not 100% sure of (My Year of Rest and Relaxation) but afterwards I tell myself it was brilliant and that I couldn't have any doubt. I think Death in Her Hands falls into that category. I quite liked the beginning - old lady, maybe slightly less unlikeable than Ottessa Moshfegh's other characters at the start, starting a new life in a cabin in the woods with her dog, living what would essentially be my dream life. Of course it starts getting darker by the page when she finds a note about Magda and a dead body but no dead body. I kept wondering where it would go, and somehow it didn't go where I thought it would, and it stayed quite... muddled. The end left me wanting more. I am sure it is a very clever novel, full of references, and I didn't expect the ending to tell me everything, but I expected something different.

Overall it was interesting and well-written and I feel I should like it more than I did. Maybe it just felt too much like Otessa Moshfegh was trying very hard to write a Moshfegh book.

Ottessa Moshfegh is one of those writers I will follow to the end of the earth. I especially loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation and her collection of short stories, Homesick for Another World. Death in Her Hands - which follows the isolated 72 year old widow Vesta and her burgeoning obsession with solving a murder mystery that may or may not be all in her imagination - isn’t quite at the dizzy heights of that level, but it’s close. It’ll still be one of the most interesting things you read this year.

Vesta is the ultimate unreliable narrator and you often get the sense that Moshfegh herself is trolling the reader. Vesta hates the mystery genre and abhors books that move along slowly with no discernible plot...

The reader becomes so invested in Vesta’s increasingly convoluted narrative involving the possible murder victim, Magda, that they begin to inhabit the world she has constructed for Magda and her band of suspects. Gradually, though, the cracks appear and we realise that, of course, nothing is as it seems.

A quick read, but one well worth your time.

Death in Her Hands had all the markers I've come to expect from an Ottessa Moshfegh book. Just as Eileen followed a woman alienated from her surroundings, coming from an abusive family, embroiled in some kind of adventure but detached from reality, Death in Her Hands follows a 72 year old woman who lives in a forest with her dog Charlie, trying to summon up the courage to spread her husband's ashes. She comes across a note about someone named Magda who is now dead, she is told, and no one will know who killed her. From there, Vesta constructs a very convincing story of who Magda was, until the lines of her fiction and her reality blur and the reader is left unsure of what is really true.
I ended up feeling sorry for Magda even though I knew explicitly she was made up by Vesta. Of course I knew that Vesta was made up by Moshfegh which the story within the story calls attention to. Moshfegh's writing plays with the reader, keeping them from stability even when the writing (especially in this book) is calm and still. In so many ways it reminded me of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, to the extent that I wonder if this is intentional. In contrast to Moshfegh's other protagonists, and like in Drive Your Plow, I actually liked Vesta a lot and wanted the best for her. I finished this book in a few hours - I had to know what the conclusion was and it didn't disappoint.

I had two good goes at this book, but I gave up in the end. I’m very disappointed because I loved My Year Of Rest And Relaxation, but I simply couldn’t get on with Death In Her Hands.

The book is the internal monologue of a widowed and isolated woman whose life seeking solitude and calm is disrupted by finding a disturbing note while walking in the woods. It’s an intriguing beginning...which goes nowhere extremely slowly. I just couldn’t keep going with the endless minutiae of Vesta’s thought processes and what was intended to be an intimate psychological study was, to me, tedious, stodgy and uninteresting.

Otessa Moshfegh is a fine writer, but this one did nothing for me whatsoever, I’m afraid.

(My thanks to Jonathan Cape for an ARC via NetGalley.)

A clever and knowing book that subverts expectations. Death in her Hands has a wry and caustic humour that fans of Muriel Spark will enjoy.

slippery, hard to grasp presentation of a character drama in a lot of ways. It is, for all that, strangely compelling and not a little addictive, I read it in one sitting, it is short and easily flowing.

The ending let it down for me really - there's a shockingly horrific moment that quietly comes out of nowhere- and I'm not really sure what the point of that was. I had a momentary disappointment that after all of the rest the author went for shock value when to get to where the character needed to be there was no need for it. A shame because otherwise this would have been an easy 5* for me given the obvious talent behind the scenes.

I'd still recommend it but be ready for a little upset at the end.