Novelist & screenwriter Ottessa Moshfegh On the art of living

Interview by Kristine McKenna 

With the publication of her 2014 novella, McGlue, Ottessa Moshfegh established herself as a bracingly inventive literary voice with remarkable range. Residing in dramatically different worlds, all meticulously detailed, her books range from a nineteenth century seafaring tale evocative of late Fassbinder; the story of a dank Hamlet in the Middle Ages where everyone is crushed beneath the heavy boot of fate; the journey of a young New Yorker who resorts to extreme measures to process her grief following the death of her parents. Her writing is rooted in a fearless imagination, impeccable craft, and ruthless self-inquiry; she never takes the easy way out.

     Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Moshfegh can do many things other than write. She’s a classically trained pianist, a vintage clothing dealer, and a collector of old toys and talismans harvested at estate sales. She’s an alpha with a pack of four dogs, a devoted member of a closely-knit family, and a friend you can count on. She’s a bit superstitious, she’s an intrepid adventuress, and a seeker of elusive truths. She opened a punk club in China when she was in her twenties, spent two weeks a few years back on the jungle floor in Peru taking ayahuasca, and two weeks in a Zen Buddhist monastery in Japan. She frequently rents lodgings and lives in cities for a few weeks where she doesn’t know a soul. Keep an eye out for her; you’ll like her if you have the good fortune to meet her.

Kristine McKenna: What do you think happens after death?

Ottessa Moshfegh: People quit the body, but I have no fucking idea what happens to the spirit. I don't think we bring our personalities into whatever comes next, or at least I hope we don't — that would be excruciating and heartbreaking. More and more I’m starting to like the idea of heaven, of some beautiful place where you feel reunited with whatever it is that you’ve been separated from throughout your life.

KM: What was terribly important to you when you were younger that no longer means so much?

OM: That’s a sad question, going back and thinking about what was important to me decades ago. Something I struggled with early in my life that’s no longer an issue is learning how to survive on a simple, fundamental level. When I was young it was important to me that I would someday have a house to live in and I could buy groceries. Am I really going to have a car and drive it around like a grown-up? I had absolutely no idea how I was going to get to those things. It was an unsolvable puzzle but somehow I solved it, at least for the time being. The puzzle I need to solve now is my own emotional world and my relationship with myself as a mortal being.

KM: Have you always had a rebellious personality, or have there been episodes in your life that brought out that aspect of your nature?

OM: Someone with a rebellious personality is always making noise no matter what room they’re in, and I actually don’t think I have a rebellious personality. I’m good at following cues, I’ve been quiet and observant, and I can get along in a lot of different kinds of social scenes; that’s what’s enabled me to have any success at all. My work is a product of my personality but it’s also a construct, and I make lots of decisions when I’m writing – it’s not as if I’m just letting it all out. Unless you’re independently wealthy and know how to manage your money, you have to play along in order to earn the space and time your creative practice requires.

KM: Can one learn to avoid repeating the same mistakes, or does life have the capacity to repeatedly throw one back into the state of ignorance one began with?

OM: Sometimes we learn through an experience without being aware of it, then you find yourself in a similar situation years later and you realise, hey, I understand how this works, and I’m going to make a different choice this time. I also have experiences where it’s like, oh, it’s that thing again, and it sends me back to the beginning and I’m clueless again. 

KM: What role does nature play in your life?

OM: Nature is the other half of reality and is kind of at odds with the reality manufactured by humans.  

I grew up in a beautiful suburb and loved walking back and forth to school through that world. Houses that felt to me like they were part of the natural environment. Lots of enormous trees. But I also found the city magical and inspiring in all its terror and grit. Boston, during the 1980s was a very scary place. One of my earliest memories is of walking down Huntington Avenue towards the conservatory where both my parents taught every Saturday, and seeing a group of people sitting on the sidewalk arguing. Suddenly this woman picked up a rock and threw it at this guy and I was totally freaked out. My mom has had a life and isn’t the type to get upset about a street fight, and she just shrugged and said ‘he probably deserved it.’ I was really impressed by that. It’s not as if I wanted to live a life where I got to throw rocks, but seeing this expression of humanity that was so totally different from what I was used to was awesome to me.

KM: Do most people have aspects of themselves that are hidden from them and they’re unaware of?

OM: We all have the capacity to do things we could never imagine ourselves doing. And, there are probably people who are so arrogant they think they can do anything, so they’ve already imagined the unthinkable things that you and I don’t think we could do. Could I extinguish the life of another person in a pre-meditated way? Yes. If I had to. I like to think that I could be a political assassin, if given the right reasons and conditions. I’ve never shot a gun in my life and I hope I never have to. I hate guns. We should replace guns with swords and try to kill each other with some grace, at least. 

KM: How often do you encounter people you feel could prove to be a menace to your well-being?

OM: As rarely as possible. Unfortunately, I’m usually attracted to people who could prove to be a menace to my well-being. You enter a room and you notice people as though they have spotlights on them: if there’s an angel in the room there’s a light on that person, and if there’s an “I’m here to completely destroy you” kind of person, they’re usually just as compelling. At this point, if I feel too excited about winning someone over it’s probably because it’s a fucked up situation I should walk away from. It’s been years since I met anyone who made me feel like “gee, I really want this person to like me.” I'm pretty distant.

KM: Have you ever surrendered your agency to another person or an external force?

OM: Living in society is a game of different kinds of surrender to outside forces. We have to surrender a lot, for instance, in order to survive our childhood, and romantic love demands a different kind of surrender. I kind of hate that word, by the way, because it suggests defeat. But it’s a strong thing to do. Surrendering is saying ‘I could keep fighting but I’m deciding not to’ and it’s an act of wisdom. Usually it means you’re not willing to pay for something with your life.

     This idea that you must surrender to God is a common notion in religion, but I think its meaning has crossed lanes into “you must submit” and “you must be a slave.” Language shifts through its usage, so I think we might need a new word. Engagement sounds better to me. Engagement requires lots of activity, thoughtfulness, doing, and exploring. It demands rigour.

KM: You’re currently offering a free writing seminar on Substack; what prompted you to do this?

OM: I don't think of it as a seminar, and actually you do have to pay ten bucks a month to get full access to my ‘writing advice’. Basically, I’m getting questions from my subscribers and answering one or two a week. I am really enjoying chewing on these problems people bring up, or thinking back to something I discovered through the writing of a book or story, things I internalised but never had to explain or wonder about openly because writing is such a lonely art...The thing I like about Substack is that it’s a place where writers can self-publish, and there is nothing at stake. There’s freedom in that. It’s not being advertised or reviewed in The New York Times, nobody’s putting money behind it, so it has an honesty that really appeals to me. And it feels more personal and intimate. It isn’t about showing off. At least I don’t feel that it is. That isn’t to suggest I’m making a criticism of the publishing industry because I’m not – the publishing industry is fine. I’m just trying to go back to the roots of my own creativity, and I felt like I had to get more on the ground and direct.

KM: Can writing be taught? Or is like a musician having perfect pitch; you either have it or you don't.

OM: I think more people who think they couldn't be writers actually could be writers. I’ve heard my mom say ‘one day I should write a book,’ and she really should. She’s a fantastic storyteller who can tell a story that goes so many places yet somehow returns to this one very mysterious but singular question. She’s brilliant. But for some reason, she thinks that if she were to sit down and try to write it out, it wouldn't work. There are lots of people like that who need to understand that the ability to simply sit down and begin your story is a discipline that can be learned. On the other hand, there are other people whose sense of language is not linear at all and they’re not even aware of the words they’re choosing when they speak. Language is not a creative form for them, and those people probably couldn’t learn to be writers.

KM: The film industry took notice of your writing with the publication of your first novel, Eileen in 2015, several of your books have been optioned by various producers, and you’ve completed a handful of scripts based on source material by others. How has writing for film affected your approach to the craft of writing?

OM: Anytime I’m collaborating and I don't know what I’m doing and I’m being asked to imagine something that’s beyond my first instinct, it widens my point of view about how to tell a story, and what kinds of stories I’m capable of telling. Obviously, a film is very different from a novel, but the thing a book and a screenplay have in common is that they are best when it feels like it is a singular author. You can trust that there’s someone way more smart than you — at least in terms of the experience of this story — who’s going to lead you through it, and you can relax and go along with how things are being revealed without feeling manipulated.

KM: Is the Bible a work of fiction?

OM: I don't think there’s anything that isn’t fiction. All these ancient texts are trying to account for human life in some way and it’s interesting that there aren’t any new sacred texts popping up these days. Or maybe we just don’t know yet what will be sacred in the future. That’s what cults try to predict, no? Well, I hate cults.

KM: Of all the ancient texts, why did the Bible become the moral compass for civilisation?

OM: It isn’t for everyone and it certainly isn’t for me. I don’t believe in the Bible. I don't think we should love thy neighbour as we love thyself, for example. I should love myself more. The survival of the species does not depend on me having compassion for the asshole next door. Not that any of my neighbours are assholes. I mean theoretically.

KM: What’s been your greatest disappointment in life thus far?

OM: When I was growing up I felt completely convinced that despite all of my personal dysfunction, there was a destiny that would be a kind of salvation for me. I figured I could count on that as long as I believed in it, worked hard, and acted accordingly. I believed there was a destiny for all of the people I loved, too, and that everyone should and would experience the glory of realising their dreams. That’s not what happens though, and some people don’t even have a dream. I could never understand my school friends who’d say things like ‘I don't know what I want to do.’ The idea that someone could not know what they were here for was terrifying to me. It makes way more sense now that I’m forty-three.

KM: People seem reluctant to give up the idea that the world is made up of average people and the occasional special person. Brian Eno once commented that many people are happy to embrace the notion of themselves as average because that means ‘they needn’t make a special effort of any kind and can just relax.’ Do you agree with that?

OM: No! I think the total opposite. I think anyone who says “I’m just an average person” and truly believes it is extremely evolved. They’re like Buddha people to me. To feel special is to live a life of intense self-scrutiny, perilous adventure, growth, and a combination of success and failure that teach you what both are like. Because that is what a special person’s life entails. If I was born and I felt I’m just an average person with an average life and maybe I’ll have a kid and I'll have the standard American version of what a lifetime is – that, to me, is living in total acceptance, but only a very spiritually evolved soul can do it. I’m incapable of living a life like that because my soul is turbulent and hyper-sensitive and I needed to believe that my specialness was not just a horrible disfigurement, that it was a gift in some way. But the “American Dream” is all about being special. 

KM: Does the public enjoy seeing its heroes suffer and self-destruct?

OM: Sometimes heroes need to fall in order to revolutionise whatever the idea was that they represented. Take Hugh Hefner, for instance. There was a time when he was like a god to both men and women in mainstream white American society, I guess. ‘If only I could be a Playboy bunny and be adored by Hugh Hefner.’ Now, I think he seems kind of evil and fucked up — a pervert and a sex addict, and the era of it being okay for men to exploit underage girls for their own pleasure is over. I think it matters that archetypes like that get cast aside because that shit needs to be called out. It’s gross and limiting. The belief that a sixteen year-old is the epitome of sexiness is gross and limiting. I mean, after the age of seventeen, should I just accept that my erotic power begins to diminish? That kind of mundane horny toxic livestock mentality has kept the sexes in a really stupid relationship with one another. It’s gross.

KM: What role do sex and sensuality play in your work?

OM: They haven’t played a very large role thus far, because I’ve mostly been engaging with biological experiences like disgust, anxiety and irritation, or a certain sense of elation. I’m hoping to explore sex and sensuality in the book I’m working on now because it’s the first long work I’ve attempted that includes romantic love. I hope I can capture something.

KM: You were trained as a classical pianist; what role does music play in your life now?

OM: It’s interesting that you ask that question because I recently made a decision to stop watching several streaming networks that are fiendishly addictive. It’s not like I’m going to absorb anything nutritional watching shows about serial killers, and the more I allow myself to do it, the more I want to do it, and the less connected with myself I become. Having eliminated that large time suck, I was confronted with the question of what to do when I’m alone and not working and I feel like relaxing, and I remembered, oh right, that’s part of what music is for. It’s to replace our own thoughts with something new and beautiful. 

KM: Why do people resist change?

OM: Because the new is always difficult.

KM: Why is the notion of originality so valued in the creative arena?

OM: Boredom and repetition are things we don't like — they feel like death. We like change, I think, but we like systematic, incremental change, which is why I think the news stories that we love the most are the ones that are just two steps further than what we’ve already experienced. It’s also an issue of value. If every book is similar to all other books then they’re all worthless. 

KM: What would you like to change about your life at this point?

OM: I wish I was less geared towards self-destruction. This probably started for me when I was around eight or nine years old, and I’m willing for it to change, but that force has been advancing and retreating throughout my life and sometimes I’m really scared and think that the gear is set. When I’m actively working against it and engaging in something that’s constructive, I’m still always aware of the looming threat, that it’s just there, waiting until the circumstances are correct, and then boom! Again. 

KM: What do you think you represent to the people who embrace your work?

OM: Maybe a little bit of courage and personal risk-taking. Something like audacity combined with a seriousness and attentiveness to the interior spiritual experience of life.

KM: How were you affected by the major success of your book of 2018, My Year of Rest and Relaxation?

OM: The reception the book received was an incredibly positive experience for me. I don’t interact with my readers very often, but when I go to a university to give a talk there will always be at least one person who approaches me and says ‘this book changed my life.’ I myself have had the experience of reading a book that made me think ‘I didn’t know that other people felt this way — I thought I was all alone until I read this book.’ That, to me, is everything.

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