McGlue

McGlue is a 2014 novella by Ottessa Moshfegh. It was Moshfegh's debut. Originally published by Fence Books,[1] it was reissued by Penguin Books in 2019.[2]

McGlue
AuthorOttessa Moshfegh
CountryAmerica
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovella
PublisherFence Books (2014); Penguin Books (2019)
Publication date
November 4, 2014
Media typePaperback
Pages144 (Fence Books edition);160 (Penguin edition)
ISBN978-0525522768

Development

In an interview with The White Review, Moshfegh talked about her experience with writing McGlue: "McGlue was really a creative act of writing through spiritual possession. I mean, I wasn’t intellectualizing, I wasn’t thinking about plot. McGlue came out of me like some magical demon. And when that was over it was like, ‘Oh, thank God.’[3]

Plot

It's 1851. McGlue, a sailor, wakes up to find himself chained down in the hold of the boat he works on. He is too drunk to remember what happened, but everyone is saying he murdered Johnson. This doesn't make sense to McGlue, Johnson was his friend and he has no memory of killing him. But he does have a history of drinking too much and getting violent. Weeks, possibly even months, pass and McGlue's inebriation is replaced by agonizing withdrawals. In his disorientation he recalls the history of his friendship with Johnson and gradually recalls the events of the night he supposedly murdered him.

Literary significance and reception

A review in the Los Angeles Review of Books wrote, "Ottessa Moshfegh’s first novel reads like the swashbuckled spray of a slit throat — immediate, visceral, frank, unforgiving, violent, and grotesquely beautiful."[4]

It was selected by Rivka Galchen as the inaugural Fence Modern Prize in Prose.[1] Discussing her choice, Galchen said this of McGlue, "A sextant of the psyche, McGlue works its grand knowing through the mouthfeel of language; it’s a sharply intelligent, beautiful, and singular novel. A scion of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Raymond Carver at once, Moshfegh transforms a poison into an intoxicant.”[5]

Novelist Brian Evenson said, "Here is the story of one man’s pursuit of self-destruction and his friend who drowns in his wake, brilliantly and desperately conveyed. Written in a style at once intoxicating and intoxicated, McGlue is a fierce and sodden historical novel that pulls nary a punch.”[1]

gollark: Computers and stuff still cost a bit.
gollark: It's not really post-scarcity.
gollark: There are entire *towns* which are basically empty.
gollark: In Switchcraft we have a giant excess of homes nobody needs.
gollark: COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE

References
  1. "McGlue". www.fenceportal.org. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  2. "McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  3. "Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh". The White Review. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  4. Vickers, Zachary Tyler. "Why Such Tidings – Ottessa Moshfegh's "McGlue"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  5. ""McGlue" (Excerpt) by Ottessa Moshfegh". Electric Literature. 2014-10-01. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
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