The last Literary Arts Live event of the semester was held on Wednesday, with an esteemed guest: Ottessa Moshfegh. As a fiction writer, Ottessa is known for producing novels, novellas, and short stories with unrelenting honesty and eloquent details. Her dirty realism bleeds through her narrators, her lens of society and people in general. Jessica Anthony, a professor in the English Department who teaches “Modern Short Stories” classes and fiction workshops, opened the program with a wonderful introduction of the talented author from Boston.
Ottessa chose to read an extensive story entitled, “Slumming.” In this narrative, a middle-aged English teacher spends her summers in a poor town by ignoring the people around her and exploring different drugs. The character is a narcissistic meth addict who ultimately chooses not to help a pregnant woman who falls while cleaning her house. The challenge for the reader is to sort through the information, the antipathy of the narrator, and ask why we expect her to be anything different than what she is.
For forty-five minutes, the entire room held the silence for Ottessa to read her work. It was a moving experience, filled with a compellingly disturbing story rooted in the truths of our society. I do not know why Ottessa chose to read “Slumming” out of all of her other works, but it was an excellent choice. She held her audience with composure and an evident gift.
The brief question and answer session following the reading provided exactly what I was looking for from this event—inspiration. She explained how she inhabits characters, how she goes to 7-Eleven for ideas, how she is fascinated with plot. Ottessa, more than anything, presented herself as a role-model in the most curious sense. While sliding in a few swears and critiques of work, she comes across as a grounded person just doing what she must do, which happens to be writing.
I felt the overwhelming need to buy her book, Eileen, and even asked her to sign it. She asked who to make it out to and then warned me, “Just so you know, I wrote this when I was really poor.” And with that, I thanked her and went back to my dorm to start reading.
Main photo courtesy of Dig Boston.