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Ottessa Moshfegh

McGlue

McGlue

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'One of America's most exciting - and most provocative - young novelists' - Financial Times

Darci's Review

Ottessa Moshfegh is a master of her craft. Brilliantly written, McGlue is a tender, gritty, and hardened tale of love and acceptance. It is set in 1851 on a ship’s voyage home across the Indian Ocean to Salem, Massachusetts. 

The book focuses on Nick McGlue and the death of his friend Johnson. McGlue is a young man who likes to wander and belligerently drink. He never much cared for education, and after a fall from a train, his capacity for brightness has been exceedingly dulled. Johnson, a few years older than McGlue, is a man of wealthy parentage, who finds himself chained to the woes of his familial status and his inability to experience life to its full potential.

Moshfegh begins the story with a drunk McGlue being accused of murdering Johnson. What follows is a captivating narrative switching between the present and the past. In the present, McGlue struggles to process Johnson’s absence as well as his treatment by the crew on the vessel which he works. In the past, McGlue details his friendship and ventures with Johnson. Through this back-and-forth rhythm, Moshfegh explores the interesting dynamic between Johnson and McGlue. Johnson cares for McGlue by paying his way for every venture they undertake, finding work for both of them, and ensuring that McGlue has alcohol on demand. McGlue follows Johnson around like a puppy, while finding his nature odd and wondering why he acts like a ‘fag’, although isn’t one, as well as bringing the life of the party to their tavern nights. Back to the present, the severity of McGlue’s alcohol problem rears frequently, alongside his mockery of the ‘blackies’ on board, and his rude treatment of  his crewmate ‘Fag’. McGlue believes Johnson is only playing tricks on him, and that he’ll soon come back with a few bottles of rum and let McGlue out of the ‘hole’ on the ship in which he’s shackled. Gradually, the reader can make sense of McGlue’s attitude towards ‘Fag’, even when considering the historical and political landscape of 1850s America. During this ordeal, McGlue’s mad-hatter-like behaviour creates a tense setting, and encourages the reader to question McGlue’s reliability as a narrator and the nature of his relationships.  

I found myself both appalled and intrigued by McGlue’s behaviour, while also sympathising with him. This young and sick-in-the-head man only ever leaned on the kindness of Johnson, at first a stranger who then became his closest friend and confidante. Moshfegh knows how to evoke an array of emotions through only 118 pages of harrowing words. Although short, the book’s impact on me is immense, and I highly recommend anyone to read it.

A perfect hardback gift for those who revel in the strange and tormenting, as well as those who enjoy a gritty but vulnerable perspective of the human condition.

Publisher's Review 

FROM THE AUTHOR OF TIKTOK SENSATIONS MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION AND LAPVONA.

Read the novel that catapulted Ottessa Moshfegh to literary stardom- a gorgeously sordid story of love and murder on the high seas.

Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, 1851- McGlue is down in the hold, still too drunk to be sure of his name, situation or orientation - but he has blood on his hands. He may have killed a man. That man may have been his best friend. As the ship makes its voyage home to Salem, Massachusetts, intolerable memory accompanies reluctant sobriety.

A-sail on the high seas of literary tradition, Ottessa Moshfegh gives us a nasty heartless blackguard on a knife-sharp voyage through the fogs of recollection.

'You're in safe, if sticky hands... A wild ride' - The Times

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