Explore the real-world places that appear in Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Bussell Boys Home for Troubled Youth, Eileen's Apartment, The Lot — Shopping Area, Boston Harbor, The Library and 9 more.
Fictional juvenile detention facility — Eileen's workplace
Eileen works as a secretary at this grim institution for troubled boys, a job that deadens her spirit and fuels her resentment. She processes paperwork for delinquents while fantasizing about escape and observing the violence endemic to the facility. Her coworker Randy spends his days cataloging the boys' misdemeanors. The home becomes the suffocating cage from which Eileen longs to flee, a place where her contempt for humanity deepens daily.
Boston had several juvenile detention facilities throughout the 20th century, with the Department of Youth Services managing troubled youth programs across Massachusetts. Such institutions were often isolated, underfunded, and sites of institutional abuse.
The specific location is fictional, but Boston-area detention facilities have since been reformed or closed. Many juvenile detention centers have been replaced by community-based programs and rehabilitation centers.
Residential building in Boston suburbs — Claustrophobic home
Eileen's small apartment is a shrine to her loneliness and stagnation. She watches her neighbor through the window, imagines elaborate scenarios, and masturbates compulsively. The space smells of cigarettes and desperation. She lives with her father, whom she resents bitterly, and the apartment becomes a prison where she spirals into fantasies about escape and transformation. Her voyeurism from this window is both her secret indulgence and a symbol of her disconnection from real life.
Mid-century Boston residential buildings housed working-class and lower-middle-class families throughout the city's suburbs. These modest apartments were the backdrop for countless stories of domestic confinement.
Residential apartments of this era continue to house Bostonians. The specific location is fictional, though the novel's setting captures the alienation of suburban Boston life.
Commercial shopping district — Eileen's surveillance ground
Eileen frequents this shopping area where she engages in minor theft and observes people obsessively. She steals lipstick and trinkets, watching other shoppers with predatory interest. Here she fantasizes about others' lives and their vulnerabilities. The Lot becomes the arena where her psychological pathology manifests—her compulsion to take what isn't hers, to invade others' privacy through observation, to imagine herself into their narratives.
Boston suburbs developed strip mall and shopping center culture throughout the 1960s-1970s as car culture expanded and retail moved from downtown centers.
Shopping districts and strip malls continue to characterize Boston-area suburbs, though many have declined with the rise of online retail.
Atlantic coastline — Temptation and escape
The harbor represents freedom and oblivion to Eileen. She imagines walking into the water, ending her suffering through drowning. The ocean becomes a symbol of her suicidal ideation and her fantasy of transformation. She visits the harbor during her mental dissolution, contemplating whether to surrender to the water's pull. The harbor embodies both release and annihilation—a mirror of her fractured consciousness.
Boston Harbor has been central to the city's identity since its founding, serving as the port that built the city's fortune. By the 20th century, it was heavily polluted and remediation efforts began in the 1980s.
Boston Harbor is now much cleaner and restored. The harborwalk is a popular public amenity with parks, restaurants, and public access to the waterfront.
Visit: Boston Harbor Harborwalk (park)
Boston Public Library or similar institution — Refuge and research
Eileen uses the library as a refuge from her apartment and work, researching Siobhan's background obsessively. She reads newspapers and public records, attempting to construct a complete understanding of her obsession's life. The library becomes a space where her fixation intensifies through information gathering, fueling her fantasy that she can know someone completely through documents and records.
The Boston Public Library, founded in 1848, was one of America's first public libraries and remains one of the most significant cultural institutions in Boston.
The Boston Public Library operates today as a major cultural and research institution with multiple locations throughout Boston and surrounding areas. The main branch is located at Copley Square.
Visit: Boston Public Library (library)
Urban core — Nocturnal wandering and surveillance
Eileen stalks Siobhan through downtown Boston, following her to bars, restaurants, and late-night destinations. She transforms into a predatory hunter, observing Siobhan's movements, memorizing her patterns, imagining their future relationship. The city streets become the stage for Eileen's fantasy of connection and the arena where her psychosis manifests most dangerously. She follows Siobhan home, positions herself in cars outside her apartment, and constructs an elaborate narrative of intimacy and destiny.
Downtown Boston developed as a commercial and cultural center throughout the 20th century, with numerous bars, restaurants, and nightlife establishments serving the urban workforce.
Downtown Boston remains a vibrant commercial, financial, and cultural district with restaurants, bars, theaters, and public spaces that draw locals and tourists.
Visit: Downtown Boston (landmark)
Residential address — Object of obsession
Siobhan, the beautiful and mysterious woman Eileen becomes obsessed with, lives in a residential building that becomes the focal point of Eileen's stalking. Eileen positions herself in cars outside the building, watches Siobhan come and go, and fantasizes about entering her space. The building represents both her desire and her pathology—the place where her fixation achieves its most dangerous manifestation. When Siobhan is arrested, Eileen loses her primary anchor to reality.
Boston residential buildings of this era housed both working and middle-class residents throughout the city and its neighborhoods.
Residential buildings continue to house Boston residents. The specific location is fictional, representing the urban landscape of 1960s-70s Boston.
Downtown Boston establishments — Siobhan's social world
Eileen follows Siobhan to various bars where she watches her drink, flirt, and socialize with other people. These establishments become stages for Eileen's voyeurism and her fantasy construction. She sits in corners, nursing drinks, observing Siobhan's every gesture and interaction. In these spaces, Eileen attempts to engineer meetings, position herself near her target, and convince herself that they share a special connection. Her behavior intensifies—she attempts to befriend Siobhan, fabricates shared interests, and eventually insinuates herself into Siobhan's life.
Boston's bar scene was vibrant throughout the 1960s-1970s, with numerous establishments catering to young professionals and nightlife seekers downtown and in neighborhoods.
Boston continues to have an active bar and nightlife scene with numerous establishments throughout downtown and neighborhood districts.
Visit: Downtown Boston Bars and Restaurants (restaurant)
Boston Police headquarters — Justice and reckoning
Eileen visits the police station after Siobhan's arrest, attempting to access information about her obsession's status. She is questioned about her relationship with Siobhan and her involvement in Siobhan's crimes. The police station represents the moment when Eileen's private fantasy collides with institutional reality. Her lies and evasions unravel. The interrogation forces her to confront her pathology and the falsity of her constructed narrative about Siobhan.
Boston Police Department has operated since 1846, with headquarters located in downtown Boston overseeing the city's law enforcement.
Boston Police Department continues to operate with headquarters in downtown Boston, maintaining public records and handling criminal investigations.
Medical facility — Institutional care and diagnosis
Eileen is institutionalized after her psychological breakdown, admitted to a psychiatric facility where she receives treatment and medication. The hospital becomes a place of forced reckoning with her mental illness. Medical professionals attempt to diagnose and treat her borderline personality disorder, her narcissistic pathology, and her capacity for violence. The institution represents her final humiliation and the systematic collapse of her elaborate fantasy world. She exists there medicated, diminished, and unable to construct her elaborate narratives.
Boston has several psychiatric hospitals and institutions dating back to the 19th century. Massachusetts has been a center for psychiatric innovation and treatment.
Psychiatric hospitals in the Boston area continue to provide mental health treatment and services, though many have transitioned to community-based models.
Downtown or neighborhood gallery — Refined world
Siobhan inhabits a world of art, culture, and refinement that Eileen desperately wants to access. Eileen discovers that Siobhan works in or frequents art galleries and cultural spaces, and this revelation intensifies her obsession. She imagines that through Siobhan, she can transcend her mediocrity and access beauty and meaning. The gallery or cultural space represents everything Eileen believes she deserves but can never achieve—sophistication, beauty, belonging to an elite world.
Boston has a thriving visual arts community with numerous galleries, artist spaces, and cultural institutions throughout the city dating back to the 19th century.
Boston continues to have an active visual arts scene with galleries, artist spaces, and cultural institutions throughout the city and neighborhoods.
Visit: Boston Art Galleries and Cultural Spaces (museum)
Public transportation hub — Fantasy of escape
Eileen fantasizes about boarding trains or buses to escape her life, imagining herself fleeing Boston with Siobhan. The terminal represents possibility and transformation—the place where she could become someone new. She researches routes and prices, constructing elaborate scenarios of escape and reinvention. The transportation hub embodies her desperate desire to transcend her circumstances, though her paralysis prevents her from actually leaving.
Boston's South Station (opened 1899) and North Station serve as major transportation hubs for the city, connecting passengers to destinations throughout New England and beyond.
Boston's Union Station and related transportation hubs continue to serve as major public transportation centers with Amtrak, commuter rail, and bus services.
Visit: South Station Boston (landmark)
Shared apartment — Site of family dysfunction
Eileen's father's bedroom is a space she both avoids and invades. She witnesses his decline and death with ambivalence, experiencing neither grief nor relief but a dull anxiety about her own mortality. She searches through his possessions, intrudes on his privacy, and experiences a moment of connection and revulsion in equal measure. His death leaves her alone with her obsessions and her internal torment, removing the last tether to normalcy.
Working-class Boston apartments in this era typically featured cramped shared spaces where family members coexisted in close proximity.
Similar residential apartments continue to house Boston families, though many have been renovated or replaced.
Downtown pharmacy and general store — Theft and compulsion
Eileen frequents a downtown drugstore where she steals makeup, lipstick, and other small items in a compulsive ritual. The theft is not about need but about exerting power and feeling alive. She observes the store clerks and other customers, constructing narratives about their inner lives. The drugstore represents her compulsive behavior and her need to transgress, to take what isn't hers, to prove her existence through violation.
Downtown Boston drugstores served as community gathering places and commercial centers throughout the 20th century.
Pharmacies and general stores continue to operate throughout Boston, though traditional independent drugstores have largely been replaced by chain pharmacies.
Visit: Downtown Boston Pharmacies and Shops (landmark)
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