Eileen By Ottesha Moshfegh (2015)
(200 pages Kindle Digital Edition)
Read on Kindle Paperwhite 11th Edition.
Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize 2016 Winner of Pen/Hemingway award 2015
Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre : Contemporary, Fiction, Mental illness, Child Abuse, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, 2023-read.
Honestly, just blew my mind. This is Moshfegh's debut novel. It is also my second book of hers - I read and liked 'My Year of Rest and Relaxation'. She is not someone who would cringe or shy away from throwing light into the deepest, darkest caves of human psyche. I think she has a secret longing and allure for those things that people usually keep secret. Like her other heroines, Eileen,a 24 year old young girl from nowhere, is unconventional. She doesn't fit the mold of 'normal'. Her thoughts, feelings and opinions are just jarring and extremely narcissistic. This book tells a first person narrative of how Eileen escaped from the trenches of her hometown and what made her do it. Swaddled within this story is a monster waiting to emerge - a tale about a boy who has brutally murdered his father.
It is horrid and utterly shocking. The prose and the narration is so good that I was sailing through an uneventful script like immersed in a lullaby. Then it hits right between the eyes. One doesn't see it coming. Can we take justice into our hands and punish those whom the justice system lets go? How complicit can a parent become to satisfy their own desires and cravings?
Eileen's mother is dead. Her sibling has married and left home. She is the only one left to care for her father. He was an ex-cop and has lost his mind slowly after her mother died. He hears voices and suffers from paranoia. He is a heavy drunk and is passed out most of the day. Eileen feels she has never been shown love or regard by anyone in her family or otherwise. She suffers from an inferiority complex due to her plain looks, work and bearing.She is working as a secretary at a juvenile prison and feels invisible. She has strange, dark fantasies for her colleague Randy who might not even know of her existence. Into this world of longing for recognition and solidarity walks a highly accomplished and beautiful woman Rebecca. She is just as unconventional as Eileen - perhaps even more so. She pulls Eileen into something she can't escape from. And her only resort is to run away from her hometown which has been her forever dream. So what did actually go down?
This is the work of a debutant and it makes one question about the society we are living in. It deals with the abuse children suffer with a delicate hand. Those who are looking for great prose and a psychological mind bender - do read this. Moshfegh definitely one of my favorite readers post this. :)