My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a 2018 novel by American author Ottessa Moshfegh. Moshfegh’s second novel, it is set in New York City in 2000 and 2001 and follows an unnamed protagonist as she gradually escalates her use of prescription medications in an attempt to sleep for an entire year.
One
WHENEVER I WOKE UP, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright
marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the
corner where there was a bodega that never closed. I’d get two
large coffees with cream and six sugars each, chug the first one in
the elevator on the way back up to my apartment, then sip the
second one slowly while I watched movies and ate animal crackers
and took trazodone and Ambien and Nembutal until I fell asleep
again. I lost track of time in this way. Days passed. Weeks. A few
months went by. When I thought of it, I ordered delivery from the
Thai restaurant across the street, or a tuna salad platter from the
diner on First Avenue. I’d wake up to find voice messages on my
cell phone from salons or spas confirming appointments I’d
booked in my sleep. I always called back to cancel, which I hated
doing because I hated talking to people.
Early on in this phase, I had my dirty laundry picked up and
clean laundry delivered once a week. It was a comfort to me to
hear the torn plastic bags rustle in the draft from the living room
windows. I liked catching whiffs of the fresh laundry smell while I
dozed off on the sofa. But after a while, it was too much trouble to
gather up all the dirty clothes and stuff them in the laundry bag.
And the sound of my own washer and dryer interfered with my
sleep. So I just threw away my dirty underpants. All the old pairs
reminded me of Trevor, anyway. For a while, tacky lingerie from
Victoria’s Secret kept showing up in the mail—frilly fuchsia and
lime green thongs and teddies and baby-doll nightgowns, each
sealed in a clear plastic Baggie. I stuffed the little Baggies into the
closet and went commando. An occasional package from Barneys
or Saks provided me with men’s pajamas and other things I
couldn’t remember ordering—cashmere socks, graphic T-shirts,
designer jeans.
