It's appropriate that Eileen is titled simply with its narrator's name, because it's a character study more than anything else. Eileen is a young woman struggling with loneliness and insecurity in a small New England town in 1964. Moshfegh captures her plight very effectively and realistically, if at a bit too much length. It's easy to believe that Eileen would respond to the attentions of the glamorous Rebecca even as they lead her into trouble.
Eileen might have been more impactful as a short story. Homesick for Another World proves that Moshfegh can build characters efficiently; I think she could have shown Eileen's neediness and her evolving feelings about Rebecca in at least half as many pages.
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