Power Q & A with Hollay Ghadery
Q: The Unravelling of Ou (Palimpsest Press, 2026) is your fourth book and debut novel, and it is entirely narrated by a sock puppet. Tell us about your decision to have the this single narrator.
A: The decision was not intentional. When I was initially thinking about the novel, I intended to have multiple perspectives, but at some point, due to a combination of reading Adele Wiseman’s Old Woman at Play (which is about her mother’s profilic doll making and creativity), and doing many crafts with my four children, a sock puppet wandered into my head. I became fascinated with the puppet’s voice, which was silly and sweet and whismically wise. I found myself disinterested in listening to any other character. So I didn’t. I let the puppet tell the story of Minoo—an Iranian immigrant to Canada struggling with shame, sexuality, and being there for herself and the people she loves.
A few readers of early drafts suggested that I include another perspective to counter-balance the puppet’s, but the idea repulsed me. Repulsed is a strong word, I know, but it is the most accurate. At first, I wasn’t sure why I was having such a strong reaction to the suggestion, but after reflecting, I realized that it was because I felt like I was being told the puppet’s perspective wasn’t reliable enough, when in fact the puppet’s is the most reliable of voices. The puppet, who I had named Ecology Paul, is the character who can talk about what other people can’t or won’t. Futhermore, Minoo is neurodivergent, and being a neurodivergent individual myself who has lived through debiliating bouts of mental illness, I have often felt that people don’t think I am a reliable narrator of my life: that someone else is better equipped to tell me what or how I am feeling.
So, while my decision to have the puppet as the sole narrator was not intentional in the beginning, my decision to stick with the conceit was incredible delibrate. I refused to scaffold this neurodivergent story with neurotypical narrative framework.
About The Unravelling of Ou:
Moving on is hard. Even harder when it’s from a make-believe friend—someone, or in this instance, some thing—who’s been your strongest source of support. On what should be one of the happiest days ever, the day her granddaughter is born, Minoo is faced with a terrible choice: make a clean break from her constant companion, a sock puppet named Ecology Paul, or lose her daughter and granddaughter, and maybe all of the people she loves. On an emotional drive home from the hospital, Ecology Paul shares the story of how Minoo got to this point, recalling Minoo’s early teenage pregnancy in Iran, her exile to Canada, her questions about her sexuality, and how a ragtag sock puppet came to her when she desperately needed to be seen. Full of imagination, whimsy and heart, The Unravelling of Ou follows Minoo’s struggles to justify the puppet’s existence and untangle herself from her dependence on it, and reconnect with the people she loves.
About the author:
Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, (Guernica Editions 2021) won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. She is the author of Rebellion Box (Radiant Press, 2023) and Widow Fantasies (Gordon Hill Press, 2024). She is a host on The New Books Network and HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM, and the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com. The Unraveling of Ou, is her debut novel.