HOME ECONOMICS
A Memoir
Format:Paperback
Publisher:New Island Books
Published:17th Apr '26
Should be back in stock very soon
'Since I’ve had my first book published, I’ve earned more from cleaning than from writing. The home economics don’t add up.'
Between 2015 and 2021 Caitríona Lally published her first two novels, Eggshells and Wunderland. To buy her time to write during those years, she returned to the housekeeping department at Trinity College Dublin, a job she enjoyed as a student. This began a negotiation between the practical and creative demands of her life, further complicated when she became pregnant and downright baffling when the pandemic hit.
At Trinity, Lally and her colleagues moved through empty, hallowed libraries, bonding over rude conference attendees. At home, she was raising two children who didn’t sleep. And the success of her first book was making her second novel seem even more arduous. Amidst all this, it was cleaning work that brought her satisfaction – immediate and lasting.
In her first memoir, Lally writes with honesty and humour about trying to solve the equation of mother + cleaner + writer. Forward and thought-provoking, self-deprecating and soaked in her singularly frank voice, Caitríona Lally puzzles over personal economics, creativity and what 'success' and 'failure' really mean in this writer’s life.
It is a reflection on womanhood, work, and motherhood, all wrapped up in a beautifully written, self-deprecating account of Lally's life as a cleaner in Trinity.
-- Katriona O'Sullivan * A Beautiful Memoir That Changed Me *Her writing on motherhood - on its total impact on your time, your body, your sleep, your ability to think - is some of the best I've read. She captures things that academic research often can't.
-- Katriona O'Sullivan * A Beautiful Memoir That Changed Me *I love books that leave me changed, and this one did. It made me reconsider my own views on cleaning, on work, and on what we value. This is not a story about a struggling writer forced into cleaning. It is a story about motherhood, about compromise, about choice, and about the constant renegotiation of a woman's life.
-- Katriona O'Sullivan * A Beautiful Memoir That Changed Me *This is absolutely one to read about the reality of ‘making it’ as an artist, and how to live, make money and create.
-- Aoife Barry * The Journal *Review for Previous Books
They say that the voice is dead in modern literature, that one good author’s voice sounds just like another. Caitríona Lally’s work makes a lie of that. She delights in language and in bringing multifaceted, believable characters and their complicated relationships to the page. If what you’re after is an accessible, funny and real read, pick this book.
-- Estelle BirdyReview for Previous Books
Caitríona Lally brings a rare mix of inventiveness and readability to her second novel, a story about two troubled siblings and how they communicate
-- Niamh DonnellyReview for Previous Books
Lally pulls it off by being inventive, funny and, ultimately, rather moving.
-- Claire KilroyIt will stay with me. I would place it alongside books like Are You Somebody? by Nuala O'Faolain and Still by Julia Kelly for its honesty and prose. If you like wonderful words, deeply affecting stories and the odd laugh, this book is for you.
-- Katriona O'Sullivan * A Beautiful Memoir That Changed Me *Her book highlights the level of tenacity required for writers - and by extension all artists - to make authentic work despite the pressures of life, work and family. But it also made me much more cognisant of the privileges I have in my own life around how I spend my time, and the caring responsibilities I have.
-- Aoife Barry * The Basic Income for the Arts scheme has its limiISBN: 9781835940358
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 332g
298 pages