Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

May 8, 2017
Thirty-year-old narrator Eleanor Oliphant’s life in Glasgow is one of structure and safety, but it doesn’t offer many opportunities for human connection. At her job of 10 years as a finance clerk, she endures snickers and sidelong glances from her coworkers because she is socially awkward and generally aloof, and her weekends are spent with copious amounts of vodka. Office IT guy Raymond Gibbons becomes a fixture in her life after they help an elderly man, Sammy Thom, when he collapses in the street. Raymond and Sammy slowly bring Eleanor out of her shell, requiring her to confront some terrible secrets from her past. Her burgeoning friendship with Raymond is realistically drawn, and, refreshingly, it doesn’t lead to romance, though the lonely Eleanor yearns for love. Debut author Honeyman expertly captures a woman whose inner pain is excruciating and whose face and heart are scarred, but who still holds the capacity to love and be loved. Eleanor’s story will move readers.

Starred review from July 31, 2017
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.