A strange and well written book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation has essentially one character: an unnamed, Columbia-educated narrator who works at a NYC art gallery, but can’t quite stand living life. So as a “reset,” she decides to sleep for a year.  With the help of a wacko psychiatrist, she downs Xanax, Ambien, trazodone, lithium Seroquel, Valium, Ativan, Neuroproxin, NyQuil, and a myriad of other drugs to help her rest, with a  goal to “drift off easily and come to without being startled” (71). 

But nothing is strong enough to block out the world till she lands on Infermiterol (not a real drug), causing three day blackouts. This–our beautiful, bored narrator living off her dead parents’ money–is exactly what she’s looking for. 

Aside from a few breaks for eating pizza or ice cream, online shopping, walking to the bodega for two coffees, or reluctantly accepting visits from her only friend (bulimic Reva who is having an affair with her boss), our narrator spends a year in a drug induced hibernation, from summer of 2000 to summer of 2001. 

She’s so unlikeable, so bored, and so tired of the world–and yet she’s kind of interesting and insightful. That’s Moshfegh’s gift as a writer: creating bizarre, somewhat disgusting characters that make us scrunch our eyes, shake our head–and then turn the page and keep reading. 

Not as weird or flinching as Lapvona, a previous book of hers but strange and oddly good. I just hope no twenty-somethings are bored or disillusioned or privileged enough to follow the path of this narrator.