My review of Ottessa Moshfegh's Homesick for Another World at 3:AM Magazine:
The publication of Ottessa Moshfegh’s story collection, Homesick for Another World, does not so much allow us to measure the progress of this writer’s talent following on her first two published books, the novella McGlue and the novel Eileen, the latter of which in particular generated considerable enthusiasm among readers and critics and seemed to establish Moshfegh as a writer whose developing career warranted attention. Instead, this new book mostly gathers the short fiction she wrote before the two longer works brought her more widespread acclaim, although these short stories, many published in such premiere venues as the Paris Review and the New Yorker, certainly also tagged her as a young writer of promise. To read them together now after considering Moshfegh’s initial efforts as novelist, in fact, only confirms their authentic achievement, the raw yet purposeful depictions of characters in extremis arguably wrought more effectively here than in either of the novels. . .