Lapvona

Lapvona is a fictional medieval fiefdom gripped by drought and famine, ruled by the vain, self-indulgent lord Villiam and his devout adviser Father Barnabas. Marek, a devout but disfigured shepherd boy, lives a hard life under his brutal father Jude, comforted only by his belief that suffering is holy. When a moment of jealousy leads to a terrible act of violence against the lord's son, Marek is taken into the manor as a kind of replacement heir — and finds himself at the center of the village's rot.

As the story moves through the seasons, it widens out to the manor's other inhabitants: Ina, the blind wet-nurse and midwife who once nursed half the village and now traffics in secrets and folk magic; and the increasingly desperate villagers below, whose faith is tested past breaking as the famine worsens. Long-buried family ties surface, forcing several characters to reckon with who they really are to each other.

Moshfegh writes Lapvona as a pitch-black fable — grotesque, cruel, and often very funny in its cruelty — about the way power justifies itself through religion, and the different, equally ugly ways people survive when survival is the only value left.