I Want to Go Home But I'm Already There by Róisín Lanigan review – a housing crisis ghost story

The Guardian

20-03-2025

To a certain extent, all rented properties are haunted. The spectres of previous tenants lurk in the bedside tables and slogan mugs they left behind; their fag smoke lingers in the carpets; the post they failed to redirect piles up in the hall. Neighbours, too, can feel like phantoms: we might rarely see them, but we hear their footsteps and their music, inhale their cooking smells, or simply somehow sense their recently departed presences on the communal stairs. As for landlords: they're probably the biggest ghouls of all.
In light of all this, it's perhaps surprising that we haven't seen more housing crisis ghost stories, or, as Róisín Lanigan's debut has been billed, a 'gothic novel for generation rent'. I Want to Go Home But I'm Already There is the story of Áine and Elliot, who have just moved into a rental together in a gentrified area of London. It's a flat that, ominously, no one else seemed to want. They are both keen to enter a more adult stage of life, but something about the place unnerves Áine from the very start.
It's a familiar premise, albeit given a fresh spin. Lanigan is a wry and witty observer of how it feels to live now, and some sentences are a delight ('she finished the fizz and put the tinsel in their recycling bin and thought about how long it would take before it disintegrated into the earth. A long time. Maybe never, actually').
She also knows her gothic tropes. Here we have a female protagonist whose instincts are telling her that something is off but, as is usual, her male partner dismisses her: 'he said the flat was just old, that it gave the flat character, that it was a silly thing to be scared of'. It's that old conundrum: ghost or mental illness? And so Áine starts to keep things from Elliot, retreating into herself as she becomes more and more afraid ('She knew not to tell him that it wasn't right, how quickly everything died here').
Lanigan creates a genuinely eerie sense of dread, and while she deploys some cliches, she does it in a tone verging on sarcastic: 'Frequently she opened her eyes to see a figure standing at the end of the wrought-iron bed, staring at her in the darkness, and she'd be frozen in fear for a few minutes until she realised it was only Elliot, probably.' There are places where I laughed out loud, such as when she describes her landlord as 'him, or her, the anonymous spectral gombeen that sucked up all of their capital'.
As her use of 'gombeen' indicates, Lanigan is Irish, and her talent for exploring the cultural dislocation Áine feels makes this novel stand out. It manifests in all sorts of ways, from her friends being more frightened of death 'than was normal' because they haven't seen enough corpses, to relatives who put out bowls of salt for spirits. Hailing from a superstitious family myself, I loathed Elliot and how he mocks her parents for their genuinely scary banshee story. His scepticism isn't the problem, it's the classist, xenophobic way in which he deploys it that has you believing in our heroine.
There is much to love about this book: its humour, its use of mould (there isn't enough mould in fiction) and its themes of inequality (Áine's childhood respiratory issues are relevant). It's a brilliant satire of London's horrific housing market. It also has flaws. At times, it plodded; and I saw the twist – if you can call it that – a mile off. I sensed that Lanigan was wary of stretching our suspension of disbelief too far, and thus she deprives us of a terrifying climax, or explanation. But I may be simply too addicted to the Uncanny podcast, and so crave answers where there are none.
Despite these reservations, the book stayed with me: it got under my skin in a way that made me shiver. Beyond the paranormal mystery, Lanigan is more interested in exploring the psychic toll that renting takes, after 'years of existing on other people's furniture, soaking in their histories and anxieties', and the meaning of home for those who may never own their own – the very real sadness of that fact. Most of all, this novel is about the decline of spirituality, and where this generation of young adults might locate God, or the devil, in its absence.
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I Want to Go Home But I'm Already There by Róisín Lanigan is published by Fig Tree (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.