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Millies life wafts off the page like cartoon stink squiggles.
As Millies boss notes, Looking at her evoked a kind of smell.
Shes a perfectly miserable temp at Lisa Hopper, a mass-market furniture showroom run by overconfident 20-somethings.
I should figure out why no one wants to be around me … None of that happens.
The pioneer and reigning queen of this trendlet isOttessa Moshfegh.
She adds, Those were the good times.
Unlike Millie, Eileen takes pleasure in the rebellion of her grease and stench.
After her protagonist made some critics queasy, MoshfeghtoldThe Guardianthat Eileen is not perverse.
I think shes totally normal …
I havent written a freak character; Ive written an honest character.
As swaddled as they were, my nether regions were difficult to scratch.
So I had to dig my hand down the front of my skirt, under the girdle …
The feminist symbolism is clear.
Moshfeghs interest in the disgusting body persisted in her next novel, 2018sMy Year of Rest and Relaxation.
I took a shower once a week at most, she says.
I stopped tweezing, stopped bleaching, stopped waxing, stopped brushing my hair.
No moisturizing or exfoliating.
Her subconscious, however, cant stop shopping and scrubbing.
After days of sleep she finds that shes had a bikini wax while slumbering.
Untether the mind, and the body will follow.
Repulsive realism comes in other varieties.
The sex itself is disappointing and gross: His penis is pink and slimy with mismatched brown balls.
The ensuing chaos is like a bawdyFriendsshtick, if Monica had discovered she could scrub out her anus.
Raunchy sex and unwashed armpits arent new either.
But todays version isnt about people attempting to rise out of the mud.
Instead, the characters manufacture their own mire and swim around in it.
They rebel against the packaging of femininity and the oppression of the lacquered image.
We begin habituating ourselves to the notion that odor and grunge arent abnormal or perverse.
Theyve simply been glossed over by potions and filters for so long that weve almost forgotten they exist.
