I’m not exactly sure why moving house is such a stressful life event, up there with death of a spouse and divorce. It might have something to do with the fact that, like a marriage, we invest a lot of ourselves in our homes. When we leave, we take with us what we can, but some of the essence of what we had and what it meant to us is fixed in that place, embedded in the floorboards, the bricks and mortar, the grouting between the tiles.
My last house move, nearly 15 years ago, was pretty stressful but I remember how reassured I felt when friends from where we’d previously lived came to visit and could see the fit between the new place and me. Although the houses were radically different in style and layout, both were mirroring some of my character. When Hildy Good, the estate-agent narrator of The Good House by Ann Leary, says that she only has to walk through a house once to understand the psyche of its occupants, she may be exaggerating, but not very much.
Moving house can have different meanings at different points of the lifespan: a young adult might need to flee the parental home to unleash their creativity; for an older person, moving might present risks to their health. In my short story, Spring Cleaning, a daughter and granddaughter’s attempts to give an older woman’s home makeover while she’s in hospital proves to be disturbing enough. In Emma Healey’s debut novel, Elizabeth Is Missing, Maud is confused and disorientated when she gives up her home, despite her daughter’s attempts to smooth the way.
My last house move, nearly 15 years ago, was pretty stressful but I remember how reassured I felt when friends from where we’d previously lived came to visit and could see the fit between the new place and me. Although the houses were radically different in style and layout, both were mirroring some of my character. When Hildy Good, the estate-agent narrator of The Good House by Ann Leary, says that she only has to walk through a house once to understand the psyche of its occupants, she may be exaggerating, but not very much.
Moving house can have different meanings at different points of the lifespan: a young adult might need to flee the parental home to unleash their creativity; for an older person, moving might present risks to their health. In my short story, Spring Cleaning, a daughter and granddaughter’s attempts to give an older woman’s home makeover while she’s in hospital proves to be disturbing enough. In Emma Healey’s debut novel, Elizabeth Is Missing, Maud is confused and disorientated when she gives up her home, despite her daughter’s attempts to smooth the way.
While Maud’s house move is only a small element of that novel, the Campbell family’s traumatic move from their ancestral home is at the core of Johanna Lane’s debut, Black Lake. Not only are they downsizing from a large country house with many more rooms than people to a small dank cottage, they are losing the idyllic views from their bedroom windows, many of their possessions, and the sense of continuity with the past. Worse still, their home has been turned into a tourist attraction and they suffer the indignity of having to stand by while groups of tourists wander through the rooms which the family themselves may no longer enter. The household effects and children’s toys have become “props”; no wonder the son, Philip, is overwhelmed when he finds another boy in his former bedroom playing with his old train set. No wonder he is confused when he discovers the conservatory in which he used to play on wet days transformed into a restaurant and, when he goes to get a drink, is informed he’d now have to pay. John, the father, having retained an office for himself in the old house, fails to appreciate the impact of the upheaval for the rest of the family, or lacks the capacity to take others’ disappointment on board. When a tragic accident compounds their loss, Marianne, the mother, does the only thing she can do, and locks herself away with Kate, the daughter, in the ballroom at the top of the house.
In The Aftermath, Herr Lubert and his daughter in post-war Hamburg also witness their spacious home being commandeered by strangers. But living alongside a British family, their conquerors and former enemies, is much more comfortable than being evicted to a displaced persons’ camp. Rachael, married to a man tasked with overseeing the city’s rehabilitation, is initially repelled by their upstairs neighbours, but gradually comes to realise that the Germans are people too.
The Luberts are certainly more fortunate than Aletta Venter and her family in Dave Boling’s novel, The Undesirables. When their South African farm is destroyed by the British, they are transported to a tented concentration camp rife with hunger and disease, where getting on with their neighbours is the least of their problems.
In The Aftermath, Herr Lubert and his daughter in post-war Hamburg also witness their spacious home being commandeered by strangers. But living alongside a British family, their conquerors and former enemies, is much more comfortable than being evicted to a displaced persons’ camp. Rachael, married to a man tasked with overseeing the city’s rehabilitation, is initially repelled by their upstairs neighbours, but gradually comes to realise that the Germans are people too.
The Luberts are certainly more fortunate than Aletta Venter and her family in Dave Boling’s novel, The Undesirables. When their South African farm is destroyed by the British, they are transported to a tented concentration camp rife with hunger and disease, where getting on with their neighbours is the least of their problems.
Although it has a much smaller impact than a house move of our own, our neighbours’ move can also be unsettling. Our next door neighbours have just moved out taking their three cats with them. When they first moved in, I had mixed feelings about these cats that seemingly preferred to patrol our garden to their own. They were great at warding off the rabbits that were partial to my lettuces but I was less impressed by their tendency to lounge in the sun on my newly-planted seedbeds. But I did become attached to them, and miss them now they’re gone.
Yet I didn’t become as obsessed with my feline visitors as the young couple in Takashi Hiraide’s novel, The Guest Cat. Childless workaholics, although fond of each other they don’t seem to be very intimate until they are adopted by a beautiful stray cat. Chibi becomes a shared project, the receptacle for the passion and playfulness that has few other outlets, anticipating her visits and courting her with tempting food. Perhaps it is because their home is rented, and their tenure provisional, that they feel so honoured by the arrival of their feline guest. When her visits stop abruptly and they are required to move out of their home, both are overwhelmed by grief. This novel wasn’t one for me, I’m afraid, but pet lovers might appreciate it as the feline antidote to Waiting for Doggo.
Thanks again to the publishers for review copies of the novels mentioned in this post. The Guest Cat is published by Picador and translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland.
Have you experienced any traumatic house moves and have you read any other novels that explore this?
Yet I didn’t become as obsessed with my feline visitors as the young couple in Takashi Hiraide’s novel, The Guest Cat. Childless workaholics, although fond of each other they don’t seem to be very intimate until they are adopted by a beautiful stray cat. Chibi becomes a shared project, the receptacle for the passion and playfulness that has few other outlets, anticipating her visits and courting her with tempting food. Perhaps it is because their home is rented, and their tenure provisional, that they feel so honoured by the arrival of their feline guest. When her visits stop abruptly and they are required to move out of their home, both are overwhelmed by grief. This novel wasn’t one for me, I’m afraid, but pet lovers might appreciate it as the feline antidote to Waiting for Doggo.
Thanks again to the publishers for review copies of the novels mentioned in this post. The Guest Cat is published by Picador and translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland.
Have you experienced any traumatic house moves and have you read any other novels that explore this?
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