Eileen

Eileen is a 2015 novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, published by Penguin Press. It is Moshfegh's first novel. It won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for debut fiction and was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel was adapted into a 2023 film of the same name. Plot Eileen narrates the events of her last week in her home town, a small Massachusetts town she calls X-ville, 50 years previously. In 1964, 24-year-old Eileen is a secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys, which she calls Moorehead. She lives with her father, a former police officer who is an alcoholic and suffers from paranoia where he believes he is being watched. Her mother died several years prior, and her sister Joanie lives a town over and visits sporadically. Eileen is deeply unhappy with her life and her self. She fantasizes about leaving and moving to New York City. On Friday, Eileen spends her time counting down the clock at her job; fantasizing about Randy, a prison guard she has a crush on; and being annoyed with her fellow secretaries, Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Stephens. The prison psychiatrist, Dr. Frye, retires. That evening, Joanie visits briefly.