Here is my third review from the Man Booker Prize 2016 shortlist. The Sellout, by Paul Beatty, was announced as the winner last Tuesday, which means I did not predict correctly (in my blog on Monday I hoped it would be Deborah Levy, but thought it would probably be won by Madeleine Thien). My only excuse is that I had not finished reading all six books on the shortlist by the time of the announcement!
As promised, here is my review of Eileen, by American writer Ottessa Moshfegh, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Have a read and see what you think, and if you have read it I’d love to know what you thought.
This is a novel about disorder; set in a seemingly sedate generic town in New England in the 1960s (for the purposes of the novel it’s called X-Ville), we are presented at the outset with a horrifying picture of chaos, in Eileen’s family home, in her messed-up mind, in her lifestyle and in her work. Eileen is a young woman and an administrator in a penal institution for young boys. Eileen, like many of the young males incarcerated at the prison, one imagines, is damaged, but, unlike those boys, the damage has not yet manifested itself in actions that have got her into trouble. Not yet. And that is the suspense of the novel – will the neglect to which she has been subjected burst out at some point?
Eileen has led a troubled life: neglected as a child by an alcoholic mother (now dead after what seems to have been a protracted illness), possibly abused by her father (we are not certain), with whom she now lives alone and who is also an alcoholic. Her father is mentally ill but his public misdemeanours are tolerated by the local police because he himself in an ex-cop. Instead, Eileen is more or less blamed for failing to keep him under control. The house they live in is disgusting – foetid, cluttered and in a state of disrepair. The effect is so visceral that just reading about it made me want to wash my hands! Continue reading “A disturbing psychological thriller”
Autumn is becoming the new ‘new year’ for many people, lighter, brighter and generally a nicer time of year than January, which I’ve always felt was a really bad time to make resolutions and embark on new activities! On that theme, a lot of people I know are using October to make fresh starts or implement changes. For so many of us, transformation starts on the inside; if we have problems or issues we want to tackle or changes we want to make in our lives, it often means overcoming personal barriers – fears, phobias, addictions and the like – or building confidence in moving forward and realising dreams.
I didn’t think that the words “life-changing” and “tidying” could belong in the same sentence in anyone’s world, let alone adding the word “magic” as well! Don’t get me wrong, like many people, I enjoy the buzz I get from a clean tidy space, it’s the cleaning and tidying bit I don’t like. Marie Kondo is a different kind of animal, but she is highly likeable because she doesn’t try to hide it. She confesses that when she was a child she loved tidying both her own and other people’s things, and devoured women’s magazines with all their cleaning and tidying tips.
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