Eileen

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh was published in 2015 and won the PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction. The novel is set in 1964. It follows the story of Eileen, a woman planning to escape her life in the New England town of X-ville. Eileen is characterized by self-loathing, depression, and body dysmorphia, all of which developed due to her abusive and neglectful childhood. Before she leaves X-ville forever, Eileen must come to terms with her own identity and ability to claim an independent life from her family and connections. This guide was written using the Penguin paperback version published in 2016. Note that Eileen’s text merits content warnings on suicide and child rape.

Plot Summary

Eileen takes place in December of 1964, a week before Christmas and the protagonist Eileen’s escape to New York City. The narrator is a much older Eileen, recounting her past from fifty years in the future. The events of the novel take place when Eileen is 24 years old. Eileen is the narrator’s name for her former self. She gives herself this name to distinguish who she was in the past from who she is now.

The narrator describes her younger self’s plan to disappear from her life in X-ville and start over in New York City.