An Instant New York Times Bestseller!Lapvona flips all the conventions of familial and parental
relations putting hatred where love should be or a negotiation where grief should be . . .
Through a mix of witchery deception murder abuse grand delusion ludicrous conversations
and cringeworthy moments of bodily disgust Moshfegh creates a world that you definitely don’t
want to live in but from which you can’t look away.” —The AtlanticIn a village in a medieval
fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely
pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test in a spellbinding
novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh’s most exciting leap yetLittle Marek the abused and
delusional son of the village shepherd never knew his mother his father told him she died in
childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind
village midwife Ina who suckled him when he was a baby as she did so many of the village’s
children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate
with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on
levels far beyond those available to other villagers however religious they might be. For some
people Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid a
godless place. Among their number is Father Barnabas the town priest and lackey for the
depraved lord and governor Villiam whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of
riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their
best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest especially in this
year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the
lord’s family new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end the veil between
blindness and sight life and death the natural world and the spirit world will prove to be
very thin indeed.
