Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

by Gail Honeyman

Once you get used to being on your own, it becomes normal. It certainly had become so for me.

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 don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.

Anger was good, she’d said, while I was putting my coat on. If I was finally getting in touch with my anger, then I was starting to do some important work, unpicking and addressing things that I’d buried too deep.