And a tease-you know from the beginning that she will escape and that the event will likely involve murder. SheвЂ™s a woman of certain, shameless habits (she regularly goes without bathing, or washing вЂњdown thereвЂќ). SheвЂ™s on a mission to escape her life as caretaker of her drunk, abusive father as an idle resident of her Massachusetts hometown (disguised throughout as вЂњX-villeвЂќ) as a lonely clerk in a boysвЂ™ juvenile prison.

SheвЂ™s straightforward, blunt, vivid and human. We fell instantly for the self-obsessed twenty-four-year-old eponymous narrator. We finally opened the book over our holiday break-ironically the same season during which Eileen is set-and finished it by Christmas. ItвЂ™s a cover fitting of a mystery the art wafts suspense and irreparable decisions. A Dodge Coronet, illustrated at the bottom, idles in flecks of snow, the lights from the headlamp pulling your eyes down-the title, MoshfeghвЂ™s name, the car. The cover is black matte, with the title stamped across in red block letters, the Es cut at an angle, as if by a blade: EILEEN. life,вЂќ Rosenthal writes in his introduction if you share in this sentiment at all, youвЂ™ll find something of yourself in his book.ДЄfter Eileen, the debut novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, found its way into our home, its daring book jacket stared at us from our makeshift coffee table for some time, while we wondered when would be the right time to begin. вЂњChance visits to record stores have changed the trajectory of my.

An episodic tour of RosenthalвЂ™s stacks-how he came to own this music and why he likes it-the book is one every collector (however casual) would love to write, and thus it engenders competing emotions of envy and enthusiasm, boredom and validation, sometimes disbelief. The Oxford American has a well-established curiosityВ about these sorts of folks, and so it follows that we enjoyed The Record Store of the Mindby Josh Rosenthal, the founder of another exceptional independent label, Tompkins Square. Observing the LedbettersвЂ™ archive, Williams writes: вЂњJust looking at the neat stacks, the careful preservation, you could see the efforts of a hand trying to keep something very big under control.вЂќ Therein lies the essential challenge facing any historian, curator, or collector, and WilliamsвЂ™s piece offers a fascinating glimpse at the interior of this idiosyncratic breed: the obsessed. In our latest issue, Wyatt Williams writes about Lance and April Ledbetter, the husband and wife behind the incredible Atlanta record label Dust-to-Digital, and their stalled project to encapsulate the early history of Georgia music in one box set.

End-of-week recommendations from the editors of the Oxford American

Beneath your beautiful guitar chords