When Stars Collide by Ottessa Moshfegh, 2023
The magic trick:
An un-self-aware protagonist who is self-reflective
New Moshfegh is always a treat.
I like this story. I like stories about actors. “Willing” by Lorrie Moore springs to mind.
This one stands out for being one of the more depressing, cynical stories you could ever derive from the genre of “how I met the love of my life.” The actor at the center of this story only lights up when his acting acumen is brought up. He is a very odd protagonist. He is at once painfully self-reflective and honest about what he likes about this woman yet still somehow painfully self-absorbed and un-self-aware.
And that’s quite a trick on Moshfegh’s part.
The selection:
I had a masseuse once who explained to me the science of touch: “There is energy within. Sometimes it is alive and hungry. Sometimes it is dead. It feels like nothing.” That was what Elizabeth felt like, what her presence felt like. She was like nothing. Like a gauze curtain over a window: there to protect your privacy but not to block the light. It wasn’t that she was dull. She was very sharp-witted, actually. She told me that her parents ran a wash-and-fold in a small town in Ohio. We shared some truisms about being from nowhere as the dancing got more frenetic. We moved to a quieter corner. By then, I had given up on refilling my drink. I couldn’t access the bar without weaving between the dancers.
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