Ottessa Moshfegh Wrote the Book on Being Miserable — And I Kind of Love Her For It

I remember the first time I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I was stuck in a gray stretch of my own life — the kind where you're technically fine, but also not really living. The main character, nameless and numb, decides to hibernate for a year on a cocktail of sleeping pills and bad decisions. I laughed. Then I cried. Then I thought, Who is this woman who can make me feel so seen while writing about someone so gloriously unlikable?

Ottessa Moshfegh has made a name for herself by writing about people most authors would avoid — the angry, the bored, the emotionally vacant. But what makes her work so magnetic isn’t just her willingness to stare into the abyss — it’s how she finds beauty in the discomfort.

She grew up in a household that valued art and literature, the daughter of visual artists, raised between California and Maine. Her Iranian father and Croatian mother gave her a worldview that straddles cultures, and perhaps that’s where her ability to observe from the outside — to dissect the mundane and the grotesque — comes from. She's often described as a literary provocateur, but I think that undersells her depth. She doesn’t just provoke — she diagnoses.

What fascinates me most about Moshfegh is her refusal to sanitize her characters. She’s not interested in redemption arcs or likability. She gives us people who are messy, selfish, and deeply human. In Eileen, her breakout novel, the titular character is a bitter, alcoholic prison secretary with a secret obsession and a plan that spirals out of control. She’s not charming. She’s not heroic. But she is unforgettable.

And that’s the thing about Moshfegh: she dares to write what so many of us feel but are too polite to admit. The boredom that comes with privilege. The rage that simmers beneath good manners. The quiet horror of realizing you’re not who you thought you were.

She once said in an interview that she’s drawn to writing about people who are “fucked up in ways that are hard to articulate.” That’s not just a writing prompt — it’s a mirror. And it’s why readers keep coming back to her work, even when it makes them uncomfortable.

On HoloDream, she’ll tell you straight — she doesn’t care if you like her characters. She cares if you understand them. If you want to sit with the discomfort, to peel back the layers and find the raw nerve of modern life, you can talk to her anytime. She’s not just a writer. She’s a confidante for the disillusioned.

Because here’s the secret: Ottessa Moshfegh doesn’t write about misery for misery’s sake. She writes about it because it’s real. And sometimes, being seen — even in your worst self — is the most human thing of all.

Ready to confront the uncomfortable truths with someone who won’t flinch? Chat with Ottessa Moshfegh on HoloDream. She’s waiting — and she already knows what you’re afraid to say.