''Lapvona'' is a 2022 novel by

Ottessa Moshfegh Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh (; born May 20, 1981) is an American author and novelist. Her debut novel, ''Eileen'' (2015), won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a fiction finalist for the National Boo ...

. It is Moshfegh's fifth novel.

Synopsis

In Lapvona, a corrupt medieval fiefdom, deformed 13 year-old Marek lives with his cruel shepherd father Jude and was nursed from birth by the village witch. When Marek commits a crime, the cruel lord Villiam demands that Jude give Marek to him as reparations, and Marek goes to live in his castle.

Background

''Lapvona'' was written by Moshfegh during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and was announced on April 12, 2021. The novel was published by

Penguin Press Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...

on June 21, 2022.

Reception

At the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the novel received a cumulative "Mixed" rating based on 27 reviews: 7 "Rave" reviews, 5 "Positive" reviews, 5 "Mixed" reviews, and 10 "Pan" review. In a review for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'',

Dwight Garner Dwight Garner (born January 8, 1965) is an American journalist and longtime writer and editor for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, he was named a book critic for the newspaper. He is the author of ''Garner's Quotations: A Modern Miscellany'' and ...

criticized the novel for lacking Moshfegh's typical wit, and that it is "narrow in its emotional range, a bleak, meandering and muddy-soled mix of fairy tale and folk horror." ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' compared the novel to Moshfegh's earlier works and found the tone "stiff" and the plot "meandering". The reviewer at ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'', however, found the book "deliriously quirky" and declared it "a triumph".

References

2022 American novels Novels by Ottessa Moshfegh Penguin Press books Jonathan Cape books {{2020s-hist-novel-stub