Writer Ottessa Moshfegh gets mediaeval, with gruesome results

SINGAPORE - American novelist Ottessa Moshfegh, 41, has often raised eyebrows for her depictions of filth and depravity. Her latest novel Lapvona, set in a village in mediaeval Europe, reprises that fascination with the scatological, cruel and violent - details of which many readers have been zeroing in on.

Moshfegh, speaking via Zoom, wonders why. "That's an element, but the story at large is much bigger. Maybe the grotesque is too distracting, so the story itself gets lost for those people. But did they not read the book? Or they just didn't like it, I guess."