Barry Pierce's Reviews > Eileen

2022 reread: still slaps!

Like The Sellout, I had been aware of Eileen (2015) for a while now. I’ve also been meaning to read it for equally as long. Once again, pushed by the Man Booker, I finally read it. Thank goodness.

Taking place over a week at Christmas in the late 1960s, Eileen tells the story of Eileen Dunlop, a woman in her early-twenties. She works at a correctional institute for young men where she stalks a security guard and spies on the inmates in solitary confinement. At home she sleeps in a cot in the attic where she pees into mason jars and indulges in laxative binges which make her bowel movements ‘torrential’ and ‘oceanic’. Her teeth are rotting from her penchant for sweets and doesn’t shower often because she enjoys stewing in her own filth. Needless to say, Eileen is a divisive narrator. Some have criticised this book for relying on shock value whilst others have praised Moshfegh for creating such a vile but enticing protagonist. My opinion is that Eileen is near a masterpiece.

Remember that scene in Trainspotting where Ewan McGregor is in the filthy toilet cubicle and proceeds in making his way into the toilet and swims around in the cistern bliss? That’s a lot like reading Eileen. You’re aware of the filth and the depravity but once you’re in there it’s actually quite beautiful. Eileen lives with her ex-cop, current-alcoholic father who she fears will kill himself eventually. At work all of her fellow employees mock and bully her for being so filthy. One cannot help but think of Eileen as an endearing character. Her life is tough, even if she brings a lot of it onto herself. You read this novel hoping thing will get better for her, hoping someone will come along and save her from herself. And someone does. From then on, Eileen wouldn’t seem out of place in Patricia Highsmith’s bibliography.

The book is written by the Eileen of right now, reminiscing about the winter that changed her life. It is an incredibly engrossing novel. Eileen is one of the most memorable characters I have read in recent years. The novel just radiates intrigue and has an ending straight out of the best Hitchcock. I will be shocked if Eileen isn’t my book of the year.