Hollay Ghadery
Andrée A. Gratton, CHOOSING ELEONORE.
Translated by Ian Thomas Shaw.
Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2021. $17.95.
Choosing Eleonore, a novella written by Andrée A. Gratton in French and recently translated into English by Ian Thomas Shaw, delivers a subtle and poetic twist on the classic stalker narrative.
The story is told through the distorted perspective of Marianne, the obsessive and narcissistic stalker. Her assessment of her own powers of perception and importance is grotesquely inflated and it’s obvious that she’s lonely and insecure.
But this is not so unusual in a stalker story.
What is unusual is that Eleonore, the object of Marianne’s obsession, is not only aware of Marianne’s oppressive preoccupation with her, but she’s unfazed by it. This is where the poetry of the book resides: not in lyric language—though the crisp, rhythmic sentences do have a lyric quality—but in the masterful abstraction of the delivery. It’s an abstraction that allows us to see some of what Marianne doesn’t because of how Eleonore reacts. Or more to the point, of how she doesn’t react.
Eleonore doesn’t talk to Marianne when Marianne calls her every night, but she lets her talk, setting the phone down so Marianne can listen to her go about her evening. Eleonore steps over Marianne when she goes out for the evening, unperturbed to find her dozing at her doorstep. And Eleonore doesn’t say anything when Marianne tags after her to a café, where she eats and ignores Marianne’s one-sided conversation.
In fact, I can only recall Eleonore speaking two sentences directly to Marianne throughout the entire book, and one of them is to tell Marianne to clean up the bedroom in which Eleonore has just had a threesome: “There’s still a room you haven’t cleaned up.” Eleonore says, “Think carefully.”
Marianne, who has just cleaned the whole filthy apartment and made breakfast after gaining access to Eleonore’s apartment during a party the night before, is elated. “She needed me. She needed me. I had to take care of the backroom.”
So, Eleonore is not only aware of Marianne’s attention: she accommodates it. Eleonore leaves Marianne a key so she can come and go as she pleases.
As readers, we can guess at what Marianne seems to pointedly ignore: by profession or predilection or a combination of both, Eleonore is adept at accommodating people, but that doesn’t mean she feels any real affection toward them. Eleonore’s late nights and heavy drinking, her heavy mask of makeup and outfits that read more like costumes, the way men are constantly coming in and out of her apartment but never staying long; Eleonore seems to be who people need her to be, but who she truly is remains unclear.
In the end, Choosing Eleonore is less about Marianne, who, despite her self-aggrandizement, is overshadowed by the compelling mystery of Eleonore. It’s a mystery that ultimately leaves us trying—and failing—to possess Eleonore’s essence, and in that way, not much better off than Marianne.
HOLLAY GHADERY
is a writer living in small-town Ontario. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and reviews have been published in various literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Room, Grain, CAROUSEL, and The Fiddlehead. She’s had personal essays published with CBC Parents and Lady Latitudes. Fuse, her memoir of biracial identity and mental health, was recently published by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in May 2021.