![]() ![]() ![]() With such hyper-focus on Eileen as a character, a great bulk of the novel doesn’t really have a plot. With all said and done, I can now characterize the novel as a meticulous dissection of the lead character and her life, performed in retrospect by the narrator herself. While I could recall some details of the summary from when I first purchased my digital copy, as well as people tacking “mystery” and “thriller” to it on Goodreads, I had only a vague notion of what was in store for me. While at this point I’m no stranger to how Moshfegh’s fiction plumbs the depths of human suffering, I was surprised with just how much of a slow burn this novel was. The story follows her life over the course of several days, leading up to the fateful Christmas Eve when her life changes forever. Between working as a secretary in a youth prison and caring for her callous, alcoholic father at home, Eileen lives a life of misery and self-loathing, fantasizing about leaving her hometown forever. Set during a bitter winter in 1964, the story follows Eileen Dunlop, a disturbed 24-year-old woman living in a nowhere town in Massachusetts. Eileen is a 2015 novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, the author’s first full-length book of fiction, which won her the PEN/Hemingway Foundation award in 2016. ![]()
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