I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There by Róisín Lanigan

Renting is a nightmare…

Áine should be feeling happy with her life. She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can’t shake the sense that there’s something not quite right about the place…

It’s not just the humourless estate agent and nameless landlord: it’s the chill that seeps through the draughty windows; the damp spreading from the cellar door; the way the organic fruit and veg never lasts as long as it should. And most of all, it’s the upstairs neighbours, whose very presence makes peaceful coexistence very difficult indeed.

The longer Áine spends inside the flat – pretending to work from home; dissecting messages from the friends whose lives seem to have moved on without her – the less it feels like home. And as Áine fixates on the cracks in the ceiling, it becomes harder to ignore the cracks in her relationship with Elliott…

Brilliantly observed and darkly funny, I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There is a ghost story set in the rental crisis. A wonderfully clear-eyed portrait of loneliness, loss and belonging, it examines what it means to feel at home.

‘Absorbing and eerie … Full of wry observations about the status markers of modern life … A hugely enjoyable portrait of the horrors of renting’ Sunday Times

‘A brilliant satire of London’s horrific housing market … It got under my skin in a way that made me shiver’ Guardian

‘A document of hellish times and a map of our relationships with others, ourselves, and our demons – metaphorical and literal’ New Statesman

‘One of the best things I’ve read on the psychological horrors of private renting, and what damp, overpriced flats can do to our emotional lives. Hilarious, horrifying, truly original. I loved it’ Oisín McKenna, author of Evenings and Weekends

‘Róisín Lanigan has been threatening to be the next great Irish writer for ages, so I’m glad she’s finally sat down and done it’ Joel Golby