Gail Honeyman

These days, loneliness is the new cancer—a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way.

I did understand, though. I knew that sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.

The world can be a very uncaring place, Eleanor. It can feel very cold and lonely. But that’s not how it has to be. We can make it a better place.

I have always taken great pride in managing my life alone. I’m a sole survivor—I’m Eleanor Oliphant. I don’t need anyone else—there’s no big hole in my life, no missing piece to complete the picture. I am a self-contained entity.

I simply didn’t know how to make things better. I could not solve the puzzle of me.

I’d tried to avoid the truth for so long, tried to push it to the very back of my mind, but it had begun to bubble up, and now it was here, unavoidable; the truth was a sight that made your eyes water.

A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who’s wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable?

I had simply failed to notice that I was happy. The future was something to be regarded with alarm, to be dealt with by the application of every resource that my fevered brain could bring to bear upon it.

But I didn’t need anyone else. I’d learned to manage perfectly well by myself. I always had.

I had been ill-prepared to grapple with the world; there was nothing that my cautious parents, with their own hang-ups and mishandled emotions, could have done to shield me from the bullets life aimed in my direction.

I’ve always thought of it as a war. I feel I have taken my enemy on, and I have triumphed. I’ve been through the worst of it, and I am still here.

I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.