Gail Honeyman, Author of ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE
[0:00]Welcome to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books, the podcast that features conversations
[0:15]with writers of all types.
[0:17]Today's episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books has been sponsored by the Crafts
[0:20]Studio, with locations in New York City on the Upper East Side and in Tribeca, the Crafts
[0:25]Studio is a perfect place to bring your kids for some crafting fun.
[0:28]Crafts Studio NYC.com
[0:30]I'm thrilled to welcome Gail Haniman.
[0:32]Gail is the author of Eleanor Olafant is completely fine, which is her debut novel.
[0:36]The graduate of the University's of Glasgow and Oxford.
[0:39]She currently lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
[0:41]Her book has sold to 30 territories worldwide, was a number one New York Times bestseller,
[0:46]and has won many notable literary prizes, including the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize
[0:50]back when it was still a work in progress.
[0:52]So please join me in welcoming Gail Haniman.
[0:55]Thanks so much for coming on the show.
[0:57]Mom's behind there.
[0:59]So for any listeners out there who haven't read, Eleanor Olafant is completely fine,
[1:03]and by the way, I am obsessed with, and I thought it was the best book ever.
[1:08]Can you just give them a quick synopsis of what your book is about?
[1:11]Sure.
[1:12]She is not completely fine for her life, and she is 29 years old.
[1:23]She lives in Glasgow in Scotland, and she has an apartment and a job, and she lives a very
[1:32]limited life, she likes her team, she likes to eat content, she likes how to go.
[1:43]And I guess the better way to sum it up is that she is someone who has learned how to
[1:48]survive, but not really how to live.
[1:51]Oh, that's a great thing.
[1:53]I love that.
[1:54]Yeah, that's a great description.
[1:55]I mean, I guess you had time to practice, but it was really good.
[1:57]I liked it.
[1:59]So this was your first novel, and it's incredible.
[2:03]I thought that wasn't supposed to happen with first novels, that you knocked it out of
[2:07]the park like this.
[2:08]How did you end up writing this amazing book?
[2:12]Well, I mean, it's just been incredibly lucky, I can say that Tim, for a debut novel
[2:21]to sort of think that happened.
[2:24]And so I'm a great book, and it's not pinching myself.
[2:29]I always was to write and I kept putting it all in the game year one day, one day.
[2:37]And then it was a bit of a cliche, but it was my fourth year's birthday, and then we
[2:44]dig back through sometimes, focus your mind on things that you haven't done yet, and
[2:48]what to do.
[2:49]I said to myself, if you think you might want to try and do it, why don't you just get
[2:55]started?
[2:56]And my day that took about two and a half years, because I had a full-time job, so I was
[3:03]spending time in my lunch week, mostly just waiting for it often.
[3:09]And I never expected, I mean, my main goal was just, I never figured just to prove to
[3:14]admit that whether or not I could write a novel over 80,000 words, 90,000 words, tells
[3:23]to lose with that kind of sign of canvas.
[3:26]And yeah, didn't want to pitch anything you can expect anyone to pump it or anything
[3:33]that is subsequently happened.
[3:35]Did you had you written short stories or shorter essays?
[3:39]Yeah.
[3:40]Well, I know when I started, when I decided to start writing, I started the short stories
[3:46]and then they're not any easier, but the main way short fiction is more difficult to
[3:53]write on just as difficult to write well, but at this point more achievable, you can
[4:00]start and finish a piece of short fiction over a period of weeks, whereas, and that's
[4:06]because of words or five thousand words for a 90,000 words, it's a bit more daunting
[4:13]prospect and so as a scientist wanted to prove to myself whether or not I could grapple
[4:19]with that sort of sign of OK.
[4:22]And why this particular story would give you the idea?
[4:26]So, it was a newspaper article that I read about loneliness, and it was a few years ago
[4:33]ago.
[4:34]So, I thought, I thought the whole thing's down in the US, but in the UK, more than that
[4:41]time discussed very much at all in the media, in that much better known.
[4:46]But a few years ago, what you didn't really see the topic discussed much at all, and
[4:52]if it was, it was usually in the context of all the people, and that was the issue
[4:58]too, a big issue.
[5:00]But this particular article has an entity with a person I'm going to try and see.
[5:09]And she went to the next 15 years.
[5:11]She had a job and an apartment, but she said to the interviewer, I'll be working fine
[5:17]on Friday at 5 p.m. and speak to the human being.
[5:21]I'll see the human being coming back to work again on Monday, Monday morning back in your
[5:27]room, and I was really stuck with that because it was so unusual to hear a young person
[5:33]are taking that experience on loneliness.
[5:36]And also, that it was very different to Halloween, and then 20-something professional,
[5:42]I was usually perceived in the, you know, that it's way just one big passing, you know,
[5:48]every night, or something.
[5:49]So, I think that a lot of the people, but it's obviously not like that for lots of people
[5:54]not by choice and not by not to their own fault.
[5:59]When I started to think about how people make friends, I'm willing that kind of way
[6:04]if it wasn't what they got to come up with lots of different routes, and reasons for that.
[6:11]I'm about to come there.
[6:13]That was the seed that the story and the cancer and the animals and eventually grew from.
[6:20]Interesting.
[6:21]I don't know about you.
[6:22]I feel like some of the loneliest moments in my life actually were when I was younger,
[6:26]because I feel like there's something about everybody being out and about and sitting
[6:30]at outdoor cafes and eating dinner.
[6:32]And if you just have a minute where you're not with someone else, I feel like that can feel
[6:36]worse than, I don't know, later in life.
[6:39]Did you feel like that at all yourself or was it just me and the woman?
[6:44]No, I think it's a very universal experience.
[6:49]I've been talking with about two years about the boot kit and certainly people
[6:58]don't understand that.
[7:01]It's not by knowing that a new experience.
[7:05]Hopefully it's not for more people.
[7:07]It's prolonged and extreme and it's for animals and not for the reasons.
[7:12]Exactly.
[7:13]I don't know how it's for animals.
[7:15]Hopefully that's the game.
[7:16]But the actual experience of women is it's sound good.
[7:18]It's a universal woman, I think.
[7:21]Well, I think you did such a nice job of it.
[7:23]Although I have to say Eleanor didn't seem to be bothered by it that much.
[7:28]You mentioned that she had gone like the woman in the article that the whole weekend
[7:32]and she said she didn't really seem to mind.
[7:35]She was just like, oh, look at that.
[7:37]I don't think I've spoken in a few days.
[7:39]Do you think she had bothered her?
[7:41]Do you think it only bothers some people or most people?
[7:44]Or what do you think?
[7:45]I think it's interesting to think about solitude and movement of two different things.
[7:54]So I think Eleanor's been in condition.
[7:58]Quite a biology person.
[8:00]But I'm supposed to think that people too that enjoy a lot of people like spending
[8:06]something or not even saying that.
[8:09]Anytime they're in enjoyable,
[8:11]that loneliness is not something that you choose.
[8:14]It's something that supports upon you.
[8:16]So I think Eleanor has a character.
[8:19]She's someone who enjoys...
[8:22]She's quite salty by nature.
[8:25]But she doesn't realize that she's also incredibly lonely.
[8:29]And those are two different things.
[8:31]Because one is just part of your personality.
[8:34]It's an enjoyable thing.
[8:36]And there's something that's improved upon you that you don't want.
[8:39]And it's not a state that you're joining.
[8:41]It seems.
[8:42]And it's only when she starts to make connections through it.
[8:46]And it's all set.
[8:48]It's only when she starts to make connections.
[8:50]I think then she has a context of realise that she's holding these
[8:55]to realise what should be missing.
[8:58]Right.
[8:59]So that makes sense.
[9:00]Totally.
[9:01]Yes.
[9:02]Yeah.
[9:03]You said you were writing it at your lunch break.
[9:05]It works.
[9:06]So now I'm basically picturing you in Eleanor Evans.
[9:09]It worked in office.
[9:10]Was that what it was like?
[9:11]Or did you just stop at your lunch break?
[9:13]No.
[9:14]No.
[9:15]It's absolutely not autobiographical in any way.
[9:19]No IT guy for you.
[9:22]It's for me part of the challenge.
[9:29]I think the enjoyment of writing is to write something different.
[9:35]People who are character to put me different to you.
[9:38]And it's easy that I'm different to the ones that you have.
[9:41]Because that's part of the whole challenge of it.
[9:43]It's a challenge to see the world to completely different eyes.
[9:46]Yeah.
[9:47]Yeah.
[9:48]What kind of job are you doing when you're running the book?
[9:51]I was working in high education.
[9:55]Yeah.
[9:56]I mean it worked in an office.
[10:00]I call it. But again, about quite lots of people working in an office environment, but
[10:06]you don't tend to read about them very often. There's much section setting off this
[10:11]upcoming goal. So you were so funny about the planning of the holiday party.
[10:16]I love that. I guess people want to get together and have fun here.
[10:22]Anyway, that was so funny.
[10:23]Thank you.
[10:24]You were also so funny. I mean, your book could be just like how to make personal grooming
[10:31]into the funniest things in the entire world.
[10:34]Like the bikini wax, the manicure, the haircut, the makeover, the personal shopping.
[10:38]It's like you show the readers all these things that we as women do all the time.
[10:44]And there's like a whole new hilarious way, right? Because we do these crazy things.
[10:49]And it is all just crazy. And I loved how at the manicure when she asks the nail technician,
[10:55]if she always wanted that job. And the technician said that she'd been debating between
[10:59]working with animals or being a nail technician. But her mother had told her she should
[11:02]do nails. So Eleanor asks, is your mother an economist or qualified careers advisor? Because
[11:07]if not, then I'm sure I'm not sure that her advice was necessarily informed by the latest
[11:11]data on earnings projections and labor market demand. And then he said, the thought did strike
[11:16]me as she painted on various counts of various furnishes that she could perhaps have, she
[11:21]could have perhaps combine the two professions when coming in dog groomer.
[11:25]However, I like to keep my counsel on the matter. Sometimes when you try to help the suggestions,
[11:30]it could lead to misunderstandings, not all of them entirely unpleasant. I love that.
[11:36]So Eleanor, you know, I found in your book, she often says and does these things totally
[11:42]unexpected, just unfiltered. And some people respond, you know, a lot of them by laughing
[11:48]in a lot of them in different ways. Like, do you think Eleanor, how do you think Eleanor
[11:52]reacts to those reactions?
[11:54]Oh, that's a new question. That's an interesting question. I suspect she is equally
[12:03]humbled by both sets of reactions. If she stops to think about mythology, I mean, when
[12:10]you first meet her, she saw includes in her own world, in her own little lake, her own
[12:17]Eleanor bubble, and not sure if she even stays much time thinking about other people's
[12:25]reactions to her. And that's something that she learns to do more, and she starts to
[12:35]grow and develop as a character, and think to be aware, to be more aware of herself,
[12:39]and we're aware of the impact of her interactions of the people and to care about them
[12:48]more as well, I think.
[12:50]I mean, I definitely think empathy is something that a lot of people need to work on, sort
[12:53]of putting themselves in other shoes. This is just a particularly striking example,
[12:58]but I think it illustrates a lot of people having a man, fortunately, sometimes feeling.
[13:06]The other line I thought was so funny was after she got her Bobby Brown makeover when
[13:11]she's convinced that the make-up person is actually Bobby Brown, which was also funny. And
[13:15]he said, I look like a small, Madagascar primate, or perhaps an North American raccoon.
[13:20]It's charming. And she just says that to the love, it's so funny. Anyway, now every
[13:25]time I'm like putting on my make-up, I'm thinking about this line of years now. So you're
[13:29]now like, I think we had my view.
[13:31]No, go ahead, go ahead.
[13:34]I'm going to say it's sort of so fun to make her, because in all kinds of ways, but in
[13:39]those examples that you've cited, the everyday thing that lots of people experience and don't
[13:46]think about, she's obviously 29, and she's very intelligent, and she's very well
[13:53]had to get it. It's almost as though she's hatched out of an egg, and at the very intelligent
[13:58]educated, newly hatched, she says, but just trying to look at these everyday things with
[14:03]completely fair size and thinking of what we're going to actually make of this, never having
[14:08]intended it before, and having normal preconceived ideas about it.
[14:12]And so I'm glad you made your laugh, because I made myself laugh and I was like,
[14:15]and I'm just excited to know that it made you laugh as well.
[14:18]I'm sure I'm not the only one, which is why it's so popular. My husband kept looking
[14:21]over at me as I first out laughing. Actually, I read, this was the first book that I read
[14:28]in the car with my kids as an audiobook, because I was dying to meet it, and I had all these
[14:32]long drives to and from pick up a camp, and I would put it on and tell them basically
[14:38]what was going on in the story, and they got really into it, and the other day, my daughter
[14:42]was like, hey, whatever happened to that book, that really funny book, because the accent
[14:45]was funny to her, she's five years old. Anyway, so I combined the audiobook with the reading
[14:52]of the book, and anyway, it was just really awesome. So the whole family was very excited
[14:57]that I was talking to you today.
[14:59]I think the actress who's casting the car, who wears the audiobook did a fantastic job
[15:05]in the film.
[15:06]She really did.
[15:07]Yeah, that was really fantastic. So Eleanor's relationship with alcohol is another big
[15:12]part of the story, and not serving her very well. She write a lot about her buying
[15:17]it, and drinking it, and you had this funny passage, or she tried to buy vodka before
[15:22]10, and said, annoyingly, it meant that I would have to go out later, again, later, to
[15:27]get my vodka. Why couldn't you just purchase it in the same way you bought, say, milk,
[15:31]to wait at any shop at any time that it was open?
[15:33]It was an illogical law, really. What was the difference between buying vodka 10 past
[15:37]9 in the morning? 10 past 10.
[15:40]Vodka is for me, merely a household necessity, like a loaf of bread or a pack of
[15:44]tea. So tell me about why you put this part of her response to the rest of her life, or
[15:53]why did you just tell me about, just tell me more about the alcohol part, please.
[15:57]Yeah, I guess it's a fact of her being there to buy it, and when you survive, I've been
[16:09]doing this, and so she doesn't socialise, she has no socialise, so I guess I wanted to
[16:18]show that if there's no social enjoyment on it for her, it's a coping mechanism, it's
[16:27]a vital part for her being able to perform for her survival techniques, and something
[16:39]again, for everyone who's given me the support, something that can be developed as she
[16:48]did help, and that's a fact of her relationship that can change to the fact that we've
[16:53]thought it was supposed to go and think to your about it, I don't want to ruin the
[16:58]I will be very, no, I think that was a good answer, I'll take it, I'll take it.
[17:04]So Eleanor's friendship with Raymond is her first sort of normal healthy relationship
[17:11]within adult male, it happens by accident at the very beginning, it leads to this whole
[17:15]string of life-changing events in the book. You referenced her past relationship, and I
[17:21]know how much to give away here, and how she eventually ends up telling Raymond about
[17:27]the issues she had had with her other relationship, how did you decide to have her interact
[17:33]with men in this way, like the previous one, and then this one?
[17:39]So without giving me the ability to explain that you have a whole path leading up to that
[17:49]point, which we won't go into, which we do find out over the course of the novel that
[17:53]has helped to sheep her to become the person that she has only friends meet her, and
[17:58]it's not given too much to me to see that people should challenge and to feel least.
[18:05]So when she came to Raymond, my hope for Raymond at the capture when I wrote him was,
[18:12]I think there are a lot of Raymond in the world, he's a decent, kind, thoughtful, gentle,
[18:24]intelligent, just a really nice man, you know? And I think there are lots of things in the
[18:29]world, but they don't tend to feature a fiction very often for some reason, so I really
[18:35]wanted to include a character like that, and I really wanted to explore a photonic
[18:40]friendship between men and women, protect them, Elmo and Mainland, because again, I think
[18:48]that's not something that's quite common in real life, but it's not something that features
[18:53]a fiction very often. So he has very small kind of sense to Elmo at the start of the relationship,
[19:04]and even though she's actually perceived as him, she puts me to him, and he has very
[19:10]more kindness of how disproportionately enormous, relative heat and the terms of Elmo's
[19:17]development as a person and a human, if that doesn't sound too dangerous. And yeah, I wanted
[19:27]to explore that in particular, that introduction between the two of them as a photonic friendship.
[19:32]Does that make sense?
[19:34]I like it. I think I can't go into all the other stuff, because then I'd get more
[19:40]away, so I'll go to the next step.
[19:42]Okay, so let's talk about it. It is, it is. Well, I wanted to talk about Eleanor's, you
[19:52]know, the weekly conversations that she has with her mom, and how you use them to sort
[19:57]of slowly, you know, show more of these.
[20:00]changes with her. So I'm just asking from a process of the writing perspective. Did you
[20:05]know this whole story from the beginning? Like did you know when you started the weekly
[20:11]calls where the whole plot would end up? Did you, is this one of those things? Some writers
[20:15]like, oh my characters took on a list of their own? Or did you have it all outlined?
[20:19]Like how did you go about doing it?
[20:21]So yeah, that's the interesting question. I, there's a piece of a huge piece of information
[20:27]that should be wrote at the very end of the book. And I knew that piece of information.
[20:33]Okay.
[20:34]But I, I knew nothing about how I would get from early on page one to that piece of information
[20:40]becoming apparent on page 200 and whatever. So it was, it was not understood for a detail
[20:49]in the way that you've created what I'm going to do. It was very much a case of just
[20:52]taking out of the character and a lot of time developing the character and the voice of
[20:57]the character, and what that gave me to get to this piece of information that should
[21:05]be used in the end.
[21:06]Yeah.
[21:07]It's probably not the more sufficient way to make it happen. But it might be more efficient
[21:11]to put every chapter in detail, but that's not how I do it. I like to just work the character
[21:18]in the way. But it's just, I've never worked, you know, that's a great thing about making
[21:23]it the normal way to do it. So whatever works for each individual person is great for them.
[21:29]Yeah. No. I mean, I don't think writing is necessarily about efficiency a lot of the
[21:34]time. You know, I don't know. It's creative for students. I don't know. It's, it's sort
[21:39]of sometimes it's about the process, right? And I don't know.
[21:43]I can put an individual thing for each individual person. The each office is added individual
[21:50]on each person. And so, and yeah, whatever works for here, I think it's the way to own.
[21:58]I really enjoy it through that sort of working out in real time with the characters that
[22:06]are at home, how we get to this piece of information in the end.
[22:11]And now that this book is really taken off, how, like, what has this been like for you?
[22:16]I mean, tell me about some of these like moments where you found out it was number one
[22:20]on the bestseller list or, you know, like, what was that like? What do you, like, tell
[22:24]your friends or your parents? Like, who, who are you in this with? Like, paying a picture
[22:29]for me.
[22:43]Because I have no expectation that any of this would happen. So, um, it's just being the
[22:49]most wonderful set of, sort of houses and it's being.
[22:58]Not any screaming, any jumping out of town. Like, any high fives? Nothing like that.
[23:07]I think there's a lot of them. Yeah, there hasn't to have the injured piece of quite a few
[23:14]times to say, did I imagine? What, what did you say? Or did I read that right? You know,
[23:22]because it just, it just feels quite unbelievable. But, um, it's amazing. The other
[23:27]thing is, it's, um, it ratings are necessarily a very salty business, but being published
[23:33]as more of a team effort because you've got, you know, all the people involved in being
[23:38]a manuscript to a finished book on a shelf. So, it's wonderful to be able to celebrate
[23:43]a book as well. Then, you know, that's a whole team of people with the publisher involved
[23:48]behind me, and that happened too. So, um, that's really nice to, to, to be able to
[23:53]share that with them too. And are you, are you one of those people who, who gets energy
[23:57]more from being alone, more introverted, or do you enjoy sort of being out and talking
[24:01]to everybody and doing the publicity and all that stuff? I think, um, can we be way
[24:07]to, uh, it's quite a noise. Next to quite a lot of skill set because you have to actively
[24:13]enjoy spending lots of time alone because when you're working with your rating, that
[24:17]you can do it really. It's like you and hair, but they also, um, you have to kind of
[24:22]be out in the world to, I think, to interact with the world and people and to get ideas
[24:27]and if, if it's a more mix of, of being enjoying, I don't know how you might want to enjoy
[24:38]interacting with it.
[24:42]So, we'll be right there, maybe, be right there.
[24:46]I was chatting with a girlfriend at this event last night, and she told me how she had
[24:51]just gotten back from a, a two day meditative retreat where she was, you had to be silent
[24:56]the whole time. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, I can never do that. And I was
[25:01]like, I'm glad, like, that's amazing. You do that, but I, like, I could not not talk for
[25:05]two days. But then I said to her, unless I was writing, because if I'm writing, it's sort
[25:09]of like, I'm talking. It's just, there's nobody exactly listening right then.
[25:15]It's too, you have a whole interior life. And, you know, there are characters that, and
[25:21]yeah, exactly. It's, it's not, you're, you're interior life is really busy with characters
[25:28]and voices of your writing. Yeah.
[25:31]Anyway, all this crazy people here, but, so I understand. So Reese Witherspoon is making
[25:37]this into a movie. Is that right?
[25:38]Yeah, very excited.
[25:40]So awesome. I like, I'm actually sitting here wearing a draper James shirt dress of Reese Witherspoon.
[25:46]I'm like obsessed with her clothing company. Do you have like a wish list of who you
[25:52]see as playing Eleanor offense? She's like, so real to me. I can't even put a pretend
[25:56]like a real, an actress into this role.
[26:00]And do you think, because I know, I know my characters so intimately, I know everything
[26:08]about them, like, how long the two wheels are, and what brand of shampoo they use,
[26:15]and what kind of mongy products they use about them, cause every little detail, I don't
[26:22]see a face when I write them. It's, it's a much more, that's not the way that I picture
[26:29]them. So I'm genuinely, I'm genuinely, I'm totally open-made about who might be half
[26:35]of the movie as roles. And I just wanted to say something to see that happen.
[26:41]Really? What's exciting?
[26:45]And do you have any more books? Do you think you're writing, or are you just going to
[26:49]post on this one for a while?
[26:51]No, I'm just about...
[26:54]Sorry?
[26:55]No, no, I said, do you have any other books you're thinking of writing?
[26:59]I'm working on a new book right now, right in the middle of it.
[27:03]So I'm more of writing Eleanor and the characters and the voice in that book.
[27:08]I'm really enjoying working on something new and different right now.
[27:12]So what's this page, I guess?
[27:16]Well, I will. I absolutely will.
[27:20]And for any aspiring novelist who are sitting at their computers on their lunch break,
[27:25]meeting if they should try to write the next great American novel.
[27:29]What advice would you, would you give them?
[27:31]Oh, gosh. That's so difficult.
[27:34]I mean, I guess, because of the advice and the very,
[27:42]it's very secretly stated about that.
[27:44]The person that I think the best thing is just,
[27:46]just you can't, and to be just like me as you can.
[27:57]And so, I think that people's work, whether it,
[27:59]regardless of what genre is we don't say to genre read,
[28:03]very widely, what media, sort of consciously absorbing,
[28:08]how do you think well, how when things don't work, why aren't they working?
[28:14]Yeah, I anticipate that, it's not, sorry, it's not a new piece of advice,
[28:18]but I think it's tried and tested and it's frequently cited for them.
[28:23]and I think that a really wide meeting as well is one of the best things that you can do.
[28:28]Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all your time today. I really, really appreciate it.
[28:33]I feel like I'm talking about major celebrity because I just thought of it. It was so amazing.
[28:38]So thank you so much for talking to me and for being on Monster and have time to read books.
[28:42]My pleasure being lovely to talk to you today.
[28:46]All right, well take care. Thanks so much. Bye bye.
[28:48]This episode of Monster and Have Time to Read Books has been sponsored by the Craft Studio,
[29:02]with locations on the Upper East Side and in Tribeca. The Craft Studio is the perfect place to
[29:06]take your kids for all your crafting goods. Craft Studio NYC.com.