The Lodgers

Most Anticipated Books of 2024 mentions in The Telegraph, Guardian, Stylist, and Vice

A dark comedy about lodgings, lovers, and mother-daughter bonds that falter across time and tenancies.

"What it said to me was that I was here again, I was back, back from the great nowhere of somewhere else, returned, all too officially, to the whereabouts of Moffa."

A woman returns to the small English town she grew up in to live in a sublet flat that overlooks her mother’s house. Anticipating a visit from the landlord or the arrival of her housemate, she is always on edge, and her thoughts keep returning to the rented room she has just left and the life she imagines its new occupant to be living.

The minor dramas of temporary living are pried open and ransacked in this this irreverent, experimental, and boldly stylish novel that examines a life lived in other people’s spaces. A subtly political story about dislocation and Generation Rent, this is a stunning debut from a writer already hailed as one of the best poets of her generation.

"This stylistically eccentric novel holds a pressing, political truth."—The Guardian

"Holly Pester is a genius and The Lodgers gets into everything that matters."—Kate Briggs, author of The Long Form