* NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Praised by The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Good Morning America, Vulture, Vogue, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and more
Now in its third printing and an ABA and USA Today National Bestseller, Housemates follows two young housemates who embark on a road trip to discover themselves in a fractured America in a sparkling debut novel of love, friendship and chosen family by the award-winning author of The Third Rainbow Girl.
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 each other. 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 three-week journey into the heart of the nation, bringing the two 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 thoughts and dreams, and to embrace what they are capable of both romantically and artistically.
Housemates is a warm and insightful coming-of-age story of youth and freedom, and a glorious celebration of queer life - and how art and love might save us all.
Emma Copley (pronounced cop-ley) Eisenberg is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Housemates and the narrative nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, which 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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