Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh
A review of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel as grotesque fiction shaped by hunger, belief, and routine cruelty.
313 pages · Kindle and audiobook edition · 2022
A Messy, Vivid, Unforgettable Read
Lapvona is grotesque literary fiction with a dark satirical edge and light folk-horror shading. I enjoyed it, even though it sits far outside my usual choices. The medieval fiefdom setting works as a pressure cooker, with hunger, faith, hierarchy, and fear compressed into one small, filthy pocket of a world.
Moshfegh tells the story in a flat, unflinching voice. That restraint gives the violence greater weight. The reader is not pushed towards shock, but towards recognition, watching how quickly cruelty becomes routine. In Lapvona, mercy feels anomalous. Brutality reads like weather.
The book is entertaining in its own perverse way. It moves easily between power, superstition, neglect, class, and the small rituals people build to survive an unjust order. It reads like a fairytale stripped to bone and gristle, uncanny and bleak, with moments of humour that sharpen rather than soften its bite.