Mid-sixties, in an unnamed town in New England. It’s Christmas season, but there’s little cheer for Eileen Dunlop. A plain-looking college dropout with no friends, she works as a secretary in a ghoulish prison for young boys, where the children are subjected to a heavy dose of bible inspired indoctrination / re-education as rehabilitation. Outside of work, Eileen either spends her time dealing with her abusive, alcoholic ex-cop father, shoplifting minor things, or most frequently, stalking a buff co-worker she has a crush on.
All this changes when the bright vivacious Rebecca Saint John waltzes into her workplace, to work as a counselor with the boys. Eileen wants nothing more to do with her tame crush, or her father. She wants to be like Rebecca, with Rebecca, and bask in the glory that is Rebecca. But in a bizarre twist, Rebecca drags Eileen into an ill-thought out crime caper, and looks for Eileen’s help to extricate herself from a situation she got herself into.
The story is narrated by Eileen, as a memoir. She is much older now, and relates this story as events from her youth. But she deliberately goes out of her way to hide the place, and details, as a hint of the crime that is to come. And it also tells us that she herself survives the series of incidents which unfold. But that said, it takes more than three fourths of the book to even start having a semblance of a plot. The first three quarters deals with her loneliness, resentment, self-loathing, hints of child-abuse, her random crushes, her drinking problem, her father’s alcoholism, the abuse of the children at her workplace.
Somehow, the build-up felt like the last bit would miraculously solve all of the above in one fell swoop. Alas, that does not happen. But Eileen does get out, as promised, and leaves her miserable world behind for a better one unfettered by unwanted responsibilities.
On the whole, the book was unsatisfying. There were too many loose ends, and unresolved storylines. While this lends a bit of realism as not all real-life stories have clear endings, it leaves the reader mildly annoyed at not knowing where each thread ends. It’s a fast read, but does get tedious since the narrator is not a very likeable person. A movie has been made of the book, I would like to see if they have tweaked the script to excise the tedium.