The Lodgers (Paperback) - Holly Pester

A burlesque, 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.' After a year away, a woman arrives back in her hometown to keep an eye on her wayward mother, Moffa. Living in a precarious sub-let, she is always on edge, anticipating a visit from the landlord or the arrival of the other resident. But her thoughts also drift back to the rented room she has just left, now occupied by a new lodger she has never met, but whose imagined navigations within the house and home become her fascination. The minor dramas of temporary living are prised open and ransacked in Holly Pester's irreverent reckoning with those who house us. This is a story about what it means to live and love within and outside of family structures. It is also a stunning first novel from a writer already hailed as one of the best poets of her generation.

About the Author

Holly Pester is a poet and writer. She has worked in sound art and performance, with original dramatic work on BBC Radio 4, and collaborations with Serpentine Galleries, Women's Art Library, and Wellcome Collection. Her poetry has been published extensively, appearing in Poetry Review, The White Review, Poetry London. Her fiction has been published in Granta and anthologised in Protest (Comma Press, 2018). Comic Timing, her Forward Prize-nominated first full collection of poetry, was published by Granta, 2021. She currently lives in Colchester, Essex.