My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Our book for this week is “My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Born in Boston, Massachusetts to a Croatian Mother and Iranian Father, Ottessa earned her BA in English from Barnard College and her MFA in Literary Arts in Brown.

Her writing style is characterized by her ability to portray lowlife characters taken with an innately pessimistic outlook on wider society, in the style of one of her influence’s, Charles Bukowski.

The book covers a period in which New York was brimming with a sense of optimism that radiated the feeling that anything was possible and invited New Yorkers to “live in the moment”. This is contrasted in the novel by the main character’s sense of purposelessness and indifference to any higher purpose in life.

The nameless character descends into a cycle she calls her “year of rest and relaxation” where she proceeds to take drugs ranging from Neuroproxin, Maxiphenphen, Valdignore to Silencior, Seconol, Nembutal, Valium, Librium, and Placydil to help her spend her year in a deep comatose state of un-consciouness, spent sleeping and eating, at the end of which she resolves to (if her outlook on life doesn’t change) end her life.