Unforgettable Eleanor puts Gail on new career path

“Can I write a novel?” was the challenge that Scottish woman Gail Honeyman set herself as the employee of Glasgow University approached her 40th birthday.

Writing a novel was something Gail had wanted to do since childhood and she’d written fiction at school. But life and university – first Glasgow, then Oxford – got in the way. As she approached 40, she decided it was time to get on with it or stop talking about it.

Her debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, was published in May 2017 and it answered her question. Gail Honeyman can write.

The novel and its central character, a lonely young woman who spends weekends at home alone with pizzas and bottles of vodka, resonated with readers and became an instant bestseller. It won an array of awards and the rights were sold in more than 30 countries. Actress Rees Witherspoon, meanwhile, bought the film rights.

Just like life, the book is sad and funny and although Eleanor is a lonely, desperately awkward human being with a traumatic family background, she’s also fiercely intelligent and utterly captivating.

The novel, which is set in the “incredibly friendly city” of Glasgow where Gail lives, is told from Eleanor’s perspective. Because the reader can see inside her head, we understand her outlook on life. Her colleagues, however, don’t and it’s that gap that leaves the space for humour and sadness, as Gail explains over afternoon tea in the city’s Galmont Hotel.

She’s in Galway for an event in the Black Gate Cultural Centre, a public conversation with Rick O’Shea. A warm, unassuming woman, Gail likes these events.

“It’s lovely to meet the readers and to hear them talk about Eleanor. For a long time, it was such a private thing in my head,” she explains.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.