Ottessa Moshfegh

In 1964, 24-year-old Eileen Dunlop lives in a small coastal Massachusetts town with her emotionally abusive, alcoholic father and works a dead-end job as a secretary in the office of a juvenile detention center. Eileen's lackluster life has her imagining all kinds of wild and violent things, stalking a co-worker she finds physically attractive, and generally being an unpleasant person. But she also dreams of running away to New York one day ... and that one day something shocking happens.

This is an odd book, although I think it was good overall. It's not a crime novel per se, although there is a crime at the heart of it and Eileen's work at the prison plays a huge role. It feels like a 1930s hard-boiled detective story, just minus the detective. Instead, that (usually male) character is replaced by Eileen. She has a lot of that sort of stereotypical protagonist's backstory and characteristics, including few real ties in terms of friendship, family, or romantic partners and thus is easily swayed when a femme fatale comes into her life.

In Eileen's case, although she describes it as a "crush," she also makes note to say it's not a romantic feeling for her femme fatale. Rebecca, the new woman at work who has Eileen in awe, is sophisticated and worldly -- or so it seems. Like Eileen, the reader is constantly left wondering about Rebecca and who she is really, where she comes from, and what she cares about deep down.

Moshfegh is certainly talented as a writer and that shows. Words and phrases flow beautifully, even when the content is not necessarily so. (She does have a tendency for the gratuitous, particularly when it comes to bodily functions, so your mileage may vary here.) She knows how to build tension, with Eileen constantly throwing foreshadowing hints here and there as she narrates the story. (Although the main story is set around Christmas 1964, Eileen is narrating from a distance in the present as a much older woman.) Moshfegh also gets the psychology of people, with Eileen being that type of person who desperately wants to be loved but makes herself unlovable as a defense mechanism, more than likely because of the emotional abuse she's suffered. In a lesser writer's hands, having such an unlikeable main character could sink a book, but here it works.

Like many a good noir novel or movie, the book ends in such a way as to leave readers questioning the ethics of justice, and revenge and questioning their morality of what's right and wrong. It is a haunting story that will stay with you as you muddle it over, just as Eileen does in her later years.

The audiobook narrator does a superb job. So much of the story is just in Eileen's head and pure narration like that can often be done in a somewhat dull way, but this narrator speaks so much life into every word, with tons of vim and vigor. The dialogue is more limited, but she does a good job giving everyone a distinct voice.… (mer)