“Death in his hands”, let the little paper speak – Liberation

Roman

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–A widow seeks to solve a crime that she invents or not, the meta-thriller of Ottessa Moshfegh.–

A piece of madeleine, flowers to buy, a cockroach in a cupboard: literature has never needed much. In the third novel by American Ottessa Moshfegh – after Eileen (2016) and My year of rest and relaxation (2019), plus a collection of short stories, Otherworldly nostalgia (2020), all at Fayard – all it takes is a simple piece of paper found on the ground, during a walk in the forest, for the machine to start. Not common, however, the paper: torn from a squared spiral notebook, perforated border “meticulously torn”, and it seems waiting to be discovered. And above all the message on it, written in blue letters, which the house narrator will make her mantra: “Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed her. It is not me. Here is his corpse.” But here it is: no corpse nearby, no blood or hair. Basically, no crime. Never mind: let’s invent one, and the whole story that goes with it. “I could write the book myself if I had the discipline, if I thought someone would read it.” We happen to read it, except that Vesta (that’s her name), 72, new to the area, doesn’t seem to know it and besides…

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