"My Year of Rest and Relaxation" is Ottessa Moshfegh's second novel, following "Eileen" (2015, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), as well as a novella ("McGlue", 2014) and a short story collection ("Homesick for Another World", 2017). Moshfegh initially planned "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" to be focused primarily on the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, even reaching out to terrorism expert Paul Bremer, though she called off the interview and the project took a different tack.