2017 – “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is the story of Eleanor, a woman who is very much alone. Eleanor has designed her life so that she can tell people that she is “fine”. She has a set routine, she has certain shops where she goes to buy the same things, she has a job as a bookkeeper and she spends her whole weekend drinking vodka until she can go to work again on Monday. Once a week she has a harrowing telephone call with her mother which makes her feel insignificant and which reminds her of her childhood trauma – the depth and extent of this trauma and abuse is revealed to us throughout the story.

One day, however, Eleanor meets a man who breaks through her reserve and attempts to make friends with her despite her outward prickliness. Together they save the life of another man in the street and they both become involved in his life too. Suddenly Eleanor is involved in a wider life and has to negotiate social interaction which she finds difficult – she very often doesn’t understand why people behave the way that they do. She has also found the man with whom she hopes to make a family. He is a local singer whom she doesn’t know but who she sets out to learn more about and to get nearer to.

The book follows Eleanor as she begins to live a more “normal” life and to face up to her mother and her past. Along the way she makes mistakes and has set backs and has to learn that she needs to settle for real life and not for her fantasies of some idealised future. It isn’t always easy for her and we begin to understand why as we learn more about her traumatic childhood.

The idea behind this book is intriguing and Eleanor is a very sympathetic character. We watch and empathise as she breaks down her barriers, or has them broken down for her, and begins to interact more with other people. But we are always aware how fragile Eleanor is and this becomes evident towards the end of the book when she cannot make reality meet her fantasies.

I enjoyed most of this book and I liked the way that the author told the story. The only exception for me was that there were some awkward occasions when Eleanor did something that showed how little she understood how things worked outside her own, protected, life. I think that we were meant to find these incidents funny but I disliked laughing at such a vulnerable and hurt woman. Overall, however, I thought this was an unusual and thoughtful book.