The Lodgers

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."

After a year away, a woman arrives back in her hometown to keep an eye on her wayward mother, Moffa. Living in a precarious sublet, 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 pried 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.

Review Quotes

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

"The Lodgers is certainly compelling… Littered throughout are shrewd observations on the rootlessness of renting, and ships-in-the-night cohabitation."—Times Literary Supplement

"In the crafty debut novel by one of Britain’s best young poets, a woman moving into a sub-let flat is preoccupied by thoughts of the one she’s left, and who’s living there now."—The Telegraph

"The Lodgers is a hugely impressive debut... this novel is not just engaging, but deeply rewarding."—Business Post

"A disorienting tale of flatmates and precarious housing arrangements comes with a hard political truth in this stylish debut novel."—The Observer

"The raging instability of the housing market and its impact on Generation Rent find rare poetic expression in this arresting debut... A novel that sharply captures the precarity of basic 21st-century living."—Daily Mail

"A raw and uncompromising dive into the shadows of existence… Brilliantly and movingly rendered."—Buzz Magazine

"This brief but captivating read will wickedly resonate with anyone who’s had to navigate precarious and depressing lettings."—Stylist

"A bold, sharp novel."—Vice

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

"A sad strange lyrical story of shame and displacement whose strength will not let you go"—Sheena Patel, author of I'm a Fan

"Very smart and sharply written. Anyone who has ever rented or sub-let or couch-surfed will instantly identify with the pain in this book, with the slightly altered sense of reality"—Sara Baume, author of Seven Steeples

"There is no one better than Holly Pester at communicating the eerie, sometimes hilarious and often hallucinatory experience of modern precarity. This is a novel for the age and for generation rent: a captivating and unforgettable account of how economic circumstance can lead to a feeling of being only half alive."—Nathalie Olah, author of Steal As Much As You Can: How to Win the Culture Wars in an Age of Austerity

"With tang and pith in every sentence, The Lodgers speaks to a generational epidemic of rootlessness and porous selfhood with vital wit and utter originality."—AK Blakemore, author of The Glutton