Order of Ottessa Moshfegh Books

Ottessa Moshfegh is an American novelist who burst onto the scene with her debut novel, Eileen that won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The book was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Ottessa was born in Boston in 1981 to her parents who were both musicians. She would play piano and clarinet at a young age. She would later attend Barnard College where she earned her BA before moving on to Brown University where she received her MFA. After graduation Moshfegh moved to China and taught English. She would later move back to the United States where she would begin her writing career. Ottessa is married to the writer Luke Goebel.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

If You Like Ottessa Moshfegh Books, You’ll Love…

• Sally Rooney
• Ocean Vuong
• Emily St. John Mandel

Ottessa’s debut was Eileen and follows the title character during the Christmas season. She is an unassuming yet disturbed young woman who is consumed by resentment and self-loathing. She holds dreams of escaping to the big city, but instead spends her weekends shoplifting and stalking a prison guard from where she works. One day, the beautiful and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead Prison and Eileen becomes enchanted by her new friend. She finds her unable to resist, even as Rebecca pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a novel about a young woman who tries to hibernate from the world with the help of a terrible psychiatrist. The woman is young and pretty, living on the Upper East Side off of her inheritance. She feels a hole in her world and her best friend and boyfriend leave a lot to be desired. She tries to heal herself through a combination of drugs, but finds that alienation may have never been the answer.