This is a narrative full of quiet warmth and deep and unspoken sadness.

If you don’t cry the first time Eleanor goes to a hair salon and thanks the blowsy Laura for “making her shiny”, you haven’t a heart. Characters aren’t goodies, baddies or plot devices, they just feel like people. It feels like a cross between RJ Palacio’s Wonder and Brian Moore’s Judith Hearne, but funnier. The book is like a cross between RJ Palacio’s Wonder and Brian Moore’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, but funnier It holds the perfect amount of vodka, however, thereby obviating the need for frequent refills.”Īs the book progresses she falls madly in love with a patently terrible pop star, whose tweets and career trajectory are a joy in themselves is persuaded to help an old man when he falls over and, gradually, gets drawn into the orbit of other people and starts to build a web of connections that might lead to a life she wants to lead. Along the top, in strange yellow font, it says ‘Top Gear’. This is her drinking from her favourite mug: “I purchased it in a charity shop some years ago, and it has a photograph of a moon-faced man. These are gradually unpicked as the novel unfolds as well as the mystery of whether there is actually something wrong with her, or whether it is just that without social interaction, our ability to understand what is appropriate behaviour in the world simply withers away.Īnd Eleanor is hilarious.

There are many reasons for Eleanor’s isolation. It is, after all, by many accounts one of the great scourges of our age, when everyone is meant to be having the most amazing time eating avocados with their friends on Instagram. Given the number of books about dementia, memory loss and other mental health issues, it is surprising that it has taken profound loneliness this long to take centre stage.

Eleanor is completely fine