--- title: Ottessa Moshfegh's Homesick For Another World: Review description: A collection of tales about creeps and weirdos who are not totally deplorable canonical: https://time.com/4606104/not-totally-deplorable/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-19T11:58:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T02:22:28.162Z article:section: Ideas og:title: 'Homesick For Another World' Is Full of Creeps Who Are Not Totally Deplorable og:description: Ottessa Moshfegh's story collection spotlights loners and losers og:url: https://time.com/4606104/not-totally-deplorable/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt07d56e7d9f8a4df1/6988b36dab6d777d7d6ac4ca/homesick-for-another-world-ottessa-moshfegh.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: "Homesick For Another World" by Ottessa Moshfegh og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Homesick For Another World' Is Full of Creeps Who Are Not Totally Deplorable twitter:description: Ottessa Moshfegh's story collection spotlights loners and losers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt07d56e7d9f8a4df1/6988b36dab6d777d7d6ac4ca/homesick-for-another-world-ottessa-moshfegh.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Homesick For Another World' Is Full of Creeps Who Are Not Totally Deplorable by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Dec 19, 2016 11:58 AM UTC  by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Dec 19, 2016 11:58 AM UTC Ottessa Moshfegh earned plaudits for last year’s [_Eileen_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143128752/?tag=timecom-20), which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction and was short-listed for the Booker Prize. But her literary career began with stories. [_Homesick for Another World_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399562885/?tag=timecom-20) (out Jan. 17) showcases her mastery with tales of a range of creeps and weirdos in despair, looking for something that will make this world more palatable to them (or vice versa). Moshfegh sympathizes with these people on the margins even as she mocks them, often suturing together comedy and tragedy in one sentence. In the case of an alcoholic schoolteacher sitting alone at a bar: “I dipped a finger in my beer,” she says, “and rubbed off my mascara.” A delusional actor with eccentric interests responds to a disappointment by “staring at the sun through the smog on the balcony, holding his eyes open with his fingers, crying.” This cast of boors may not be the kind of folks readers would seek out to spend time with in real life. But in Moshfegh’s stories, their company is irresistible. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4606104/not-totally-deplorable/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4606104/not-totally-deplorable/"},"headline":"'Homesick For Another World' Is Full of Creeps Who Are Not Totally Deplorable","datePublished":"2016-12-19T11:58:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T02:22:28.162Z","description":"Ottessa Moshfegh's story collection spotlights loners and losers","url":"https://time.com/4606104/not-totally-deplorable/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt07d56e7d9f8a4df1/6988b36dab6d777d7d6ac4ca/homesick-for-another-world-ottessa-moshfegh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt07d56e7d9f8a4df1/6988b36dab6d777d7d6ac4ca/homesick-for-another-world-ottessa-moshfegh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"Homesick For Another World\" by Ottessa Moshfegh","caption":"\"Homesick For Another World\" by Ottessa Moshfegh","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4606104/not-totally-deplorable/","name":"'Homesick For Another World' Is Full of Creeps Who Are Not Totally Deplorable"}}]}] ```