Eileen

May 11, 2015
Winner of both the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize and a Stegner Fellowship, Moshfegh moves beyond her previous short fiction achievements with this dark and unnerving debut novel. In 1964, Eileen Dunlop is 24 years old, living with her cruel, alcoholic father, and working at Moorehead, a juvenile detention center for boys. She also spends a lot of time hating herself (“I looked like nothing special”) and plotting her exodus from the small New England town where she’s been trapped. Eileen’s perspective is one of hindsight, some 50 years later, looking back on her final days of quiet, isolated misery before the rest of her life begins, a very different life we know will happen without knowing much more. The book’s opening evokes a stark kind of empathy for Eileen, who is extreme in her oddness and aversion to personal hygiene, but still quite likable. Unfortunately, some 100 pages in, she is still announcing her imminent departure. As the claustrophobia and filth of her circumstances become more suffocating over the course of the novel, they seem more redundant than effective. With the arrival of the mysterious Rebecca, an alleged education specialist at Moorehead, Eileen’s momentum (and the narrative’s) finally picks up somewhat, although it will still feel stagnant to some readers.

Alyssa Bresnahan flawlessly introduces listeners to Eileen Dunlop, a complicated survivor who tempers her self-loathing with a warped and morbid sense of humor. Eileen works as a secretary in a gloomy New England boys' reformatory by day and suffers miserably with an abusive alcoholic father by night. Bresnahan's understanding of storytelling momentum helps her create the necessary tension this psychological thriller requires. Eileen's erotic fantasies for a guard at work and her obsession with a female counselor lead to a complicated and twisted outcome that will shock listeners. Eileen's peculiar thoughts, wild fantasies, and weird impulses are not easily manifested, but Bresnahan manages them wonderfully. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine