Between this, the novella McGlue, and the Man Booker-shortlisted Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh has quickly proven herself a virtuoso at painting characters in snap-portraits, through their physical gestures and momentary reactions. And those portraits are rarely pretty. Still, in this compilation of her stories—work originally printed in sources like the Paris Review, Harper’s, and the New Yorker—even the most off-putting people can give you perfect punchline after perfect punchline. At the very least, the people in these stories will linger in your mind for weeks, for months, maybe—we’ll see—for years. Their thoughts are often dark and uncomfortable, but their lives are so tactile that you can’t help but feel strongly for (and see yourself in) the worlds she envisions, with their petty aggravations and all.