V171 reviewed Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Goodreads Review of Eileen, by Otessa Moshfegh
4 stars
Classic Moshfegh, Eileen is an atmospheric tale of addiction, obsession, and depressing delusion. We follow Eileen, a young 24 year old living in New England, living and caring for her retired, alcoholic ex-cop father who has nothing but disdain for her. The story is recounted by an older Eileen, telling the reader what led her to "escape from X-ville," her home town she disliked so much, she wouldn't deign to share its actual name. Eileen works in a juvenile detention center, managing the visits between the boys and their mothers. Her life is wholly unremarkable and her time is spent in toxic introspection, hyper focusing on her lack of self worth and desirability, obsessive vanity but without self awareness, enabling her father's alcoholism, and accepting all of his verbal abuse day after day. We get hints of her pathological obsessiveness when we learn that she regularly stalks one of the …
Classic Moshfegh, Eileen is an atmospheric tale of addiction, obsession, and depressing delusion. We follow Eileen, a young 24 year old living in New England, living and caring for her retired, alcoholic ex-cop father who has nothing but disdain for her. The story is recounted by an older Eileen, telling the reader what led her to "escape from X-ville," her home town she disliked so much, she wouldn't deign to share its actual name. Eileen works in a juvenile detention center, managing the visits between the boys and their mothers. Her life is wholly unremarkable and her time is spent in toxic introspection, hyper focusing on her lack of self worth and desirability, obsessive vanity but without self awareness, enabling her father's alcoholism, and accepting all of his verbal abuse day after day. We get hints of her pathological obsessiveness when we learn that she regularly stalks one of the guard at the boy's prison who she doesn't even necessarily like, but because he is a man she has proximity to, she yearns for his approval and desire.
This all changes when Rebecca's starts at work. A new director of education brought in to teach the prisoners, Rebecca is seemingly everything Eileen wants to be, chic, elegant, witty, and sharp. For some reason, Rebecca takes a liking to Eileen and they spend time getting to know each other as Elieen's obsession shifts to focus solely on Rebecca. This results in a climactic, violent outcome.
Moshfegh is an expert at crafting the most pitiable, unlikable characters imaginable, but makes them more pathetic than they are bad, so you can't help but to feel sorry for them. For main characters, this makes them compelling to follow. For side characters, it can be a bit of a chore reading about how irredeemable they usually are. The pacing of this story was strange. Narrator Eileen often hinted to the climax that was coming, but the climax ended up happening within the last 25 pages, making the end feel rushed. In fact, considering this story is really about Eileen's obsession with Rebecca, I was surprised to see that Rebecca doesn't even enter the story until about half way through the book, with the first half setting the scene for Eileen's sad, Sisyphean life. Aside from the rushed ending, this didn't really bother me because I enjoyed the whole story, but I was surprised that it took so long to get to the central plot of the story for a rather short book.
There were a few moments of disgusting depravity here, but it was no Lapvona. I was expecting worse, but not necessarily hoping for it. Check the trigger warnings before picking this up though. If you like Moshfegh's other works, you'll love this even if it feels a bit tame in comparison.
