Michael Barnes
This one certainly falls into the 'unreliable narrator' genre, but unlike most not because they are a psychopath or a narcissist, far from it. In fact Elenor's unrelentingly critical inner voice is one of the challenges of this debut novel. Elenor is acerbic, aloof, unbearably awkward, rude, and a complete lack of social skills and as her character and background is revealed and you begin to see the nightmare she was living and the horror she has lived as a child you only want to see her achieve some measure of happiness.
The book follows Eleanor Oliphant, a thirty-year-old finance clerk in Glasgow whose life is governed by rigid routines: work, weekly phone calls with “Mummy,” and weekends blurred by vodka.
The way the story is revealed, a detail here a memory there of what Elenor is hiding from herself (and therefore, the reader) as it shades in the rest of her world. The discussions of loneliness, trauma, and the life-saving power of ordinary kindness resonates. Eleanor’s journey from isolation to connection is neither easy nor sentimental, which makes her eventual hope feel genuinely earned.
This one certainly falls into the 'unreliable narrator' genre, but unlike most not because they are a psychopath or a narcissist, far from it. In fact Elenor's unrelentingly critical inner voice is one of the challenges of this debut novel. Elenor is acerbic, aloof, unbearably awkward, rude, and a complete lack of social skills and as her character and background is revealed and you begin to see the nightmare she was living and the horror she has lived as a child you only want to see her achieve some measure of happiness.
The book follows Eleanor Oliphant, a thirty-year-old finance clerk in Glasgow whose life is governed by rigid routines: work, weekly phone calls with “Mummy,” and weekends blurred by vodka.
The way the story is revealed, a detail here a memory there of what Elenor is hiding from herself (and therefore, the reader) as it shades in the rest of her world. The discussions of loneliness, trauma, and the life-saving power of ordinary kindness resonates. Eleanor’s journey from isolation to connection is neither easy nor sentimental, which makes her eventual hope feel genuinely earned.