When Áine’s flatmate Laura moves out to move in with her boyfriend, the natural progression is for Aíne to move in with her boyfriend Elliott. So begins the stressful search for a place to call home. They can’t believe their luck when they find a place, just about in budget, in a trendy neighbourhood; but from day one, Áine feels that something about the flat isn’t quite right. From the cold and the mould creeping out from under the basement door, to the drafts, how quickly fruit rots once it comes through their doors, the overgrown garden with a mysterious shed at the end of it, the neighbours upstairs – the creepy, angry man and the wailing woman – and that constant feeling of being watched within her own four walls. The apartment becomes a character in itself, the weight of it growing, closing in, creeping, suffocating. As her doubts about the flat deepen, so does the strain on her wellbeing – mental and physical – and in her and Elliott’s relationship. 

This book is anxiety between two covers, pulsating with it; and yet there is a dark humour to it too. Exploring sweeping themes like the dread of the current rental climate – our story takes place in London but could be in many contemporary cities around world – mental health, social media angst, the pros and cons of working from home, societal expectation of where we should be at a certain time in our lives, and the inevitable pressure to keep up with others, as well as more intimate themes like spiralling self-doubt, lack of trust in those around us, and the line between contented acceptance and resigned complacency in relationships. We see Áine questioning if what she has with Elliott is love, wondering if this is the correct way to feel and be, if this is what others around her are feeling. At times she feels really good with him, feels like she really is in love and that he does love her back; and yet things niggle at her, she thinks back over situations and conversations, and wonders. The growing dread she feels at the question of whether the house might actually be haunted becomes a joking point for him and others in her life; becoming a breaking point in their relationship as his lack of belief in her, his lack of willingness to listen to her, points to other cracks between them. A blending of contemporary fiction and modern gothic horror of sorts, this is a compelling and brilliantly written debut by Róisín Lanigan; I really enjoyed this one.

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I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There was published by Fig Tree in March.

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Róisín Lanigan is an editor and writer based in London and Belfast. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian and The Fence, amongst other publications. She was longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019, and won the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2020. I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There is her first novel.