Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Housemates is a charming and extrospective dissection of what it means to connect with others—through love, through art, through walls. The novel follows Bernie and Leah, a pair of creatives who embark on a road trip across Pennsylvania to document contemporary America with their art. Bernie and Leah’s relationship is a modern re-imagining of the partnership between Berenice Abbott, a 20th-century architecture and urban design photographer, and Elizabeth McCausland, an influential art critic and historian. Housemates beautifully captures what it means to be moved by the infinite possibilities of life and the desire to immortalize it through art, which can only be achieved by loving, creating, and living.
Pressured by the approaching move-out deadline for her apartment, Bernie, barista by trade and on-hiatus photographer, reluctantly applies for an odd housemate listing in West Philadelphia. With an eclectic cast, the novel peeks into the impassioned queer culture of Philadelphia. Coming over for her “housemate interview,” Bernie is first greeted by the nervous but warm Leah, a writer-editor for a local queer publication. Leah’s partner Alex is also a journalist, though distinctly more self-assured and interrogative of Bernie. With each line of questioning, Violet and Meena add short quips of approval or exchange sly glances at each other depending on Bernie’s answers. Despite this, the housemates stumble over themselves to be accommodating. Protest signs rest against their living room wall; an inspirational poster is stuck haphazardly to a closet door with a few pieces of clear tape. The novel is self-aware and unafraid to laugh at itself, yet it is loving all the same of the neighborhoods and communities it resides in.
Following the death of Daniel Dunn, Bernie’s photography instructor and mentor in college whose tarnished legacy soured their bond, Bernie is left with an inheritance of his photographic estate and an aversion to the artform itself. Still, Bernie, an observer by nature, tries her best to practice capturing the Philadelphian cityscape with her large format film photography. At the same time, Leah is burnt out from her humdrum job, laboring to produce articles marketable enough to be published but not interesting enough to take pride in—a struggle many young creatives today can attest to. Eisenberg carefully builds tension by grounding the perspective within the walls of the house. The housemates are suspended between hearing one another’s most intimate moments through the old creaking woodwork and feeling unable to overcome the impossible distance they find between each other. Bernie often hears Leah in the adjacent room crying out of frustration in between the tapping of her keyboard, not knowing why she does not seek comfort in her partner who lives just upstairs. Leah notices Bernie’s tattered toothbrush that she always took too long to replace and wonders whether it is out of carelessness or financial strain. When Leah’s newspaper agreed to sponsor her travels across Pennsylvania for a work project, she was determined to convince the photographer to join her. As time passes, Bernie and Leah’s relationship develops from an appreciation for the other’s craft into a romantic and artistic partnership.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the novel is its meta narration. The narrator is implied to be an older woman living in the same neighborhood. Though she rarely asserts herself and is not involved in the plot, her imaginative narration tells two tales: that of Bernie and Leah’s, and that of her hidden lesbian partnership with an unnamed Housemate. Years after her partner’s passing, the narrator abandons her photography and chooses instead to drift in the solitude of the home they used to share—until she is jostled out of her isolation by the sight of Bernie and Leah at a nearby café. Transcending boundaries between fiction and reality, the narrator adopts the role of an author. She seeks to investigate Bernie and Leah’s lives and relationships, and in doing so she bestows her own experiences and hopes onto the couple. The story of Bernie and Leah are built upon and told in parallel with those of previous generations of queer women.
The novel is also a commemoration of Philadelphia’s history. Being a long-time Philadelphian, the narrator describes the old camera store from which she used to buy film and lenses now replaced by a fancy yoga studio, and the intersection next to Bernie and Leah’s house where segregation is so evident that there is a clear racial divide on either side of the road. In the face of gentrification, neighborhood staples become fleeting. The narrator relays every bit of history with urgency, as though the memories will forever escape her if she tries to put it out of mind any longer.
Housemates answers the ever-present need for the documentation and celebration of queer experiences. Carrying on the adventure their namesakes started, Bernie and Leah explore instances of homophobia, racial discrimination, poverty, America’s hostility towards the arts, and anti-fat bias, among other social issues still salient in the country. At the same time, it captures the quiet beauty in the heart of the nation.
You can find more about Eisenberg and her work here.
Housemates
Emma Copley Eisenberg
Hogarth
May 28th, 2024
352 pages
