The Hype Was Right, On This One!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       The author's name I can barely pronounce, much less spell, but I can attest that one reader cited it as "Shirley Jackson meeting Vladamir Nabokov," and I have to agree with this assessment.

                                       "Eileen" has a creepy undertone in its prose style, suggesting the Gothic implications of Jackson, and the more erotic ones of Nabokov.  It sneaks up on the reader, because one is never sure where this story is going?  Is it a tale of social outcast embitterment?  A narrative by a schizophrenic?  A clandestine, lesbian thriller?  An exploration of female psychosis?

                                         Actually, "Eileen" is all of these things.  And the way Moshfegh builds the tension quietly till it explodes in an almost conventional revelation, shows how wonderfully she can rework generic conventions.

                                       The novel is told in flashback, with the older Eileen, now settled somewhere, looking back on some events of her pivotal, twenty fourth year.

                                          What I would like to know, is what happened afterward?

                                           I hope another novel answers that question!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!