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Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT
A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick
"Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too!" --Reese Witherspoon
No one's ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.
But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .
The only way to survive is to open your heart.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Eleanor Oliphant is 30 years old and profoundly lonely, working in a dead-end job and stuck in an endless routine. At the start of the story, she seems to merely be socially awkward-she is overly blunt and truthful in a way people find off-putting, she doesn't grasp social cues or pop culture references, and she takes everything literally. Then she and her coworker Raymond unexpectedly help an old man who has collapsed, the three form an odd friendship, and Eleanor begins to open up about her traumatic past. Narrator McCarron gives an award-worthy performance: her Eleanor is by turns comical in her obliviousness to basic things and utterly heartbreaking in discussing her past. Her narration is nuanced, conveying both Eleanor's surface facade of "everything's fine" and all the subtle layers of repressed pain and trauma underneath. It's a performance that will stay in listeners' minds long after the story is over. A Viking/Dorman hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
The Costa award-winning debut novelist on the kindness of Glasgow and becoming a full-time writer in her 40s Gail Honeyman arrives in London trailing a wheelie-case, having travelled from Glasgow on a plane that was supposed to leave at 7am, but was delayed by the freezing weather. As we take the escalator up to liberate her of the case for a photocall, we muse on the peculiarity of a 7C ground frost stranding a plane which regularly flies at air temperatures of 40C. In ways that only those who have found themselves sucked into her award-winning debut novel will truly understand, this is an Eleanor Oliphant moment: it enfolds a stressful experience, stoically borne, in the beady intelligence of a woman who is rarely seen in public without a trolley-bag. The comparison has less to do with Honeyman herself than with the capacity of her writing to make everything seem a little bit strange, slightly dislocated from its face value. The protagonist of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is in some ways a classic unreliable narrator, reminiscent of Zoë Hellers spinster schoolteacher from Notes on a Scandal or any number of girls on a train. But whereas most such narrators exert a sinister control on the perspective and plot of the novels in which they appear, Eleanor is immediately revealed as an eccentric, pratfalling her way through the early chapters, apparently oblivious to the way her foibles appear to those around her, even as she reports the conversations she has overheard. She shores herself up with ritual (The Archers on weekday evenings, two bottles of vodka at the weekend) and barricades herself behind a comic formality of thought and speech, while harbouring an adolescent crush on a singer known only to her through his Twitter feed. The character grew, Honeyman explains, out of a newspaper article she read years earlier about the problem of loneliness. At the time it was something that wasnt discussed much and when it was, it was usually in the context of older people who are widowed or whose families have moved away. She was particularly struck by an interview with a woman in her 20s who confessed that after leaving work on a Friday night she often wouldnt talk to anyone until she returned on Monday morning. I started to think how could that be the case, and I realised there were lots of ways people could end up leading that sort of life through no fault of their own. As Eleanor herself puts it, in a rare moment of self-pity: These days, loneliness is the new cancer a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people dont want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted. If Eleanors story is about the long-term cost of bad things happening, Honeymans is in part about the short-term cost in terms of public interest in her private life of good things happening. She admits to having grown up in a village in central Scotland, midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but, when pressed about her background or her personal life, clams up. It simply hasnt occurred to her that such questions might be relevant. It takes a mid-interview phone call to her parents to reassure her that its OK to mention what they did for a living: her mother was a civil servant and her father worked in a science lab, both are now retired. There was no history of writing in the family, and she and her younger brother went to the local state school. Theres really no mystery. Its all very ordinary. Honeyman went on to read French language and literature at Glasgow University and then set off for a postgraduate degree at Oxford with the intention of becoming an academic, but decided in her 20s that the scholarly life was not for her. Returning to Scotland, she settled down to backroom jobs, first as a civil servant specialising in economic development and then as an administrator at the university where she had once studied. She had shown an aptitude for writing at school and had always had a pipe dream of becoming a writer, but it wasnt until her 40th birthday that she made the decision that it was now or never. It was such a cliched thing to do either that or go off and do a bungee jump, she says. She joined a writing group and started producing short stories, because though in some ways short fiction is harder, it seemed more manageable. When Eleanors voice began to speak to her, she captured it in three chapters, which she submitted to a competition for unpublished fiction by female writers run by Cambridges Lucy Cavendish College. I was incredibly lucky because three chapters was what they were looking for. Though she didnt win, one of the judges was a literary agent who liked it enough to sign her up. Honeyman finished the novel in the evenings and in her lunch breaks and was so intent on managing my expectations that she was away on holiday in France when her agent decided it was ready to send out to publishers. I think there are a lot of Raymonds in the world ordinary, kind, decent men who dont often get featured in fiction Her editor at HarperCollins, Martha Ashby, takes up the story: I went into a side office and started reading it on my Kindle and it was one of those books that you could just immediately tell was really special, she says. Her colleagues shared her enthusiasm as did seven other publishers who joined a hastily convened auction, which soared to six figures in four rounds of bidding. On the final day, Honeyman was confined to her hotel in Carcassonne while the competing editors called her up to make their cases and find out more about the unknown writer on whom they were about to bet the corporate silver. When results came through, late on Friday afternoon, Ashby, who had been fighting a heavy cold, was sitting in a station waiting for a train. I remember screaming on the platform and then sitting down on the train and realising that I was really quite poorly. It was the biggest auction Id ever done. For Honeyman it was the start of a period of editing and revising which she found she enjoyed as much as the writing itself. She handed in her notice at work and embarked on the life of a full-time author, a move which, she wryly remarks, returned her to the library life that she gave up in her 20s because she found it too isolating but I suppose what doesnt look fun at 22 can be fun when youre 42. By the time the novel arrived on the shelves it had already built up a head of steam, selling in 30 countries and being snapped up for a film by Reese Witherspoon within days of publication. And what a joy it is, wrote novelist Jenny Colgan in the Guardian. The central character of Eleanor feels instantly and insistently real, as if she had been patiently waiting in the wings for her cue all along. Its word of mouth success spread throughout the autumn of 2017 it was a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and with perfect timing, just before the paperback was due to be released this month, it was awarded the Costa first novel prize, putting it in contention for the book of the year, which is announced on 30 January. Strangely, for a novel centred on an oddball whose life has been knocked off kilter by an unnamed childhood horror which she can only recall from her sense of its before and after, Eleanor Oliphant satisfied a yearning for the feelgood fiction that publishing insiders have dubbed up-lit. The US crime writer Attica Locke spoke for many when she wrote: This book gave me immense joy during a year that I think we can all agree was a challenge to every Americans joy centre. The point, as Honeyman says, is that although shes had a fairly catastrophic start, Eleanor is the agent of her own life. I didnt want her to be portrayed as a victim, and I didnt want her to be self-pitying either. I tried to leave space in the narrative so that the reader can feel those feelings on her behalf. It is a story of the transformational power of small acts of kindness, often involving food: complimentary truffles with a cup of coffee, a plate of biscuits to accompany a mug of tea. For Honeyman it is also a love song to Glasgow, where she has lived since she turned her back on her academic ambitions. I wanted to set it there because its a place that I love and its a very kind city, though I dont think its always portrayed like that, she says. Eleanors unravelling and subsequent redemption begins when an old man collapses in the street. Its definitely my experience that, if that were to happen in Glasgow, 10 people would rush forward. I think that it has an undeserved reputation as a hard city and its nice to show the more positive side. Eleanors partner in kindness is computer nerd Raymond, who overcomes her prejudice about unshaven illiterates who communicate in textspeak with outings to see his aged mother and a weekly lunch date in the local cafe. He hardly has the makings of a romantic hero but then this is not quite a love story. Its an exploration of platonic friendship, says Honeyman. I think there are a lot of Raymonds in the world: hes the sort of ordinary, kind, decent man who doesnt often get featured in fiction. Shes aware that Eleanor is going to be a hard act to follow, but she is already hard at work on her next novel, about which she reveals little except that it will be set in a different period and location. Ill see what happens, I guess, she says, as she wheels her case off to the next appointment. She might not yet feel comfortable with the public demands of her sudden celebrity, but shes clear about one thing: Its a dream come true for this to be my job. - Claire Armitstead.
New York Review of Books Review
ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE, by Gail Honeyman. (Penguin, $16.) Eleanor, the socially awkward, terrifically blunt heroine of this quirky novel, is a loner, spending her weekends alone with vodka and frozen pizzas. But a blossoming romance with her office's I.T. specialist, Raymond, and their friendship with an elderly man help stave off isolation, opening them all up to the redemptive power of love. THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. (Flatiron, $17.99.) The author's work as an intern at the firm that defended an accused murderer and pedophile compels her to re-examine her own past abuse. She devotes herself to finding parallels between her molestation by her grandfather and the firm's client, and indicts what she sees as society's refusal to acknowledge wicked acts. MADE FOR LOVE, by Alissa Nutting. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $15.99.) After Hazel's husband - a wealthy, manipulative tech visionary - implants a chip into her brain, she leaves him, showing up at her father's senior living community to stay with him and his sex doll. As our reviewer, Merritt Tierce, put it, the novel "crackles and satisfies by all its own weird rules, subversively inventing delight where none should exist." THE OUTER BEACH: A Thousand-Mile Walk on Cape Cod's Atlantic Shore, by Robert Finch. (Norton, $16.95.) Finch, a nature writer, shares 50 years of observations from a stretch of shoreline. The book, arranged chronologically from 1962 to 2016, devotes a chapter to each place up the shore; our reviewer, Fen Montaigne, wrote that "Finch artfully conveys what is, at heart, so stirring about the beach: how its beauty and magisterial power cause us to ponder the larger things in life and drive home our place in the universe." OUT IN THE OPEN, by Jesús Carrasco. Translated by Margaret Juli Costa. (Riverhead, $16.) In this bleak, dystopic debut novel, a young boy flees his tormentors and family's betrayal into a parched, unnamed land. When he is joined by an old goatherd, the pair recalls Don Quixote as they make their way through a merciless world, trying to evade cruelty. Faced with suffering, the novel asks, will we respond with grace? I WAS TOLD TO COME ALONE: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad, by Souad Mekhennet. (St. Martin's Griffin/Henry Holt, $17.99.) As a Muslim of Moroccan descent raised in Germany, Mekhennet, a Washington Post reporter, has been able to access inner circles of Islamic militants. Her book takes readers into the world of jihadi recruiters and their targets, and assesses the risk the West faces.
Library Journal Review
Eleanor Oliphant is a socially inept 30-year- old who bounces between self-restrictive practicality and flights of fantasy more appropriate to a teenaged girl. Honey-man has created a mix of a Cinderella and ugly duckling who finds that life outside her daily routine can be magical and rewarding. A serendipitous conjunction of a growing friendship with a colleague and his decision to step in to help save a senior citizen with a health crisis spurs -Eleanor to look beyond her cloistered present and a traumatic past. The author paces the story of that past with well-placed clues, spread like bread crumbs, to keep Eleanor sympathetic and worth cheering for. Cathleen -McCarron embraces this audio role with skill. -VERDICT Recommended for larger fiction collections. ["Honeyman's exquisite, heartbreaking, funny, and irresistible novel brings to life a character so original and pitch-perfect that it is nearly impossible to believe this is a debut": LJ 2/15/17 review of the Pamela Dorman: Viking hc.]-Joyce Kessel, Villa -Maria Coll., Buffalo © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
