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Two young housemates embark on a road trip to discover themselves in this sparkling novel of love, friendship, and chosen family in a fractured America.
When Bernie replies to Leah's ad for a new housemate in Philadelphia, the two begin an intense and defiantly uncategorizable friendship based on a mutual belief in their art, and one another. Both aspire to capture the world around them: Leah through her writing; Bernie through her photography.
After Bernie's former photography professor, the renowned yet tarnished Daniel Dunn, dies and leaves her a complicated inheritance, Leah volunteers to accompany Bernie to his home in rural Pennsylvania, turning the jaunt into a road trip with an ambitious mission: to document America through words and photographs.
What ensues is a journey into the heart of the nation, bringing the housemates into conversation with people from all walks of life—"the absurd dreamers and failures of this wide, wide country"— as they try to make sense of the times they are living in. Along the way, Leah and Bernie discover what it means to chase their own ideas and dreams, and to embrace what they are capable of both romantically and artistically.
Warm and insightful, Housemates is a story of youth and freedom—a glorious celebration of queer life, and how art and love might save us all.
"Eisenberg has a poet's eye for truth, and her prose is gorgeously precise and empathetic while remaining cleareyed. Emotionally rich and quietly thought-provoking, this is simply a stunning debut." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sumptuous ... Once Eisenberg revs the engine, she reaches luminous heights. Readers will count themselves lucky to go along for the ride." —Publishers Weekly
"A brilliant book about friendship, found family, and jawns. It's an ode to our bonds told through exquisite character work that makes the world feel so lived in." —Debutiful, "Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2024"
"A debut novel that's part The Price of Salt and part Just Kids, in which two friends journey across America in pursuit of art and love." —Electric Literature
"A wise, beautiful, and gorgeously gay exploration of America, art, and the rugged, vast country that is love itself." —Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different
"Gorgeous ... Housemates is a novel as full as life itself, about art-making and love and friendship and making a way in the world, complicated, funny, questioning, moral. Bernie and Leah are still with me. I won't ever forget them." —Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book
"The brilliant, queer, abundant, art-drunk, soulful, sexy American road-trip novel we've needed for so long ... Emma Copley Eisenberg writes about the way we live now with tremendous insight and a wide, wide heart. Believe me: This is one journey you don't want to miss." —Stacey D'Erasmo, author of The Complicities
"A perfect novel about making art, making a life, and how to do those things at the same time, with other people." —Hilary Leichter, "A Year in Reading" at The Millions
This information about Housemates was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Sylvie Rosokoff
Emma Copley Eisenberg is a queer writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her first book, The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, was named a New York Times Notable Book and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Award, among other honors. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, McSweeney's, VQR, American Short Fiction, and other publications. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.
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