“Woman of Nowhere”

Home in Claire-Louise Bennett’s Prose

Abstract

The paper discusses the motif of house and home in the prose of ClaireLouise Bennett, an English contemporary author settled in Ireland. It explores different housing configurations she represents along her oeuvre and especially in her debut short story collection, Pond (2015), in her subsequent novel Checkout 19 (2021) and in the short story “Invisible Bird,” published in The New Yorker (2022). These configurations vary from shared accommodation and renting to the extreme of homelessness. Considering Bennett’s representations of diverse housing schemes, the article discusses her prose as a commentary on the Irish housing crisis and, more broadly, the global housing situation. It unravels how dictionary definitions presenting home as a stable base become destabilised in her prose while the focus shifts towards increased mobility. The narrators – notably, women – seem to find peace in being on the move, treating their situation as an opportunity to reconsider their freedom, identity, priorities and preferences. Hence, the article proposes that the phrase “woman out of nowhere,” used to describe the narrator in Bennett’s novel, Checkout 19, seems to suit most of Bennett’s narrators. Drawing on Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, revealing home to be an intimate space for cherishing one’s dreams, as well as on contemporary studies concerned with housing, mobility and nomadology, the paper examines how Bennett’s prose, while registering the alarming housing issues, encourages distancing oneself from conventional views on house and home and seeking solace in transformation. Moreover, Bennett seems to be revisioning the role of women in the contemporary society by including a single creative woman who lives independently among possible and valuable social roles.