'I look back now and I just want to hug that girl'
Daisy Buchanan on how her house sharing years shaped life today
When I ask Daisy about her house sharing years, she remembers a poster that’s hanging on the wall of her office. “It’s for a film called Sheila Levine is dead and living in New York. I found it in the film museum in Amsterdam. I’ve never seen the film but something about that young woman with all her worldly goods in her arms, looking sad and standing in a lift resonated. Chatting about being a woman in the world trying to find somewhere to live reminded me of it. It’s a powerful image that sums up the years I spent house sharing and interning, stringing things together and trying so hard to make them work.” It's a time that shaped the character of Imogen in her novel Careering.
Here, Daisy remembers her house sharing years and reflects on how they inspire her work today.
We don’t talk enough about how emotive money can be. Something I really wanted to dig into in Careering was the connection between the desire to be successful when you feel very financially and economically anxious. Those two things are so closely linked and it was really important to me as I was writing that Imogen doesn't have somewhere to go where she feels safe. She's fizzing with this sort of anxious energy because she needs the job to afford where she lives.
I still curdle with shame thinking of the time I owed someone £70 for a bill. I was a broke intern at a magazine and I was always late paying my bills because I just didn’t have the money at the time. I’d make excuses about there being a problem with the bank transfer. I’d get the money eventually but I remember being so scared about using any sort of household resources because I just felt like I wasn't entitled to anything. I look back now and I just want to hug that girl.
I thought my house sharing years would be like an episode of Friends. I grew up watching it and so house sharing was presented to me as something that was going to be so fun and so fulfilling. I was going to find a new family. I thought there was something wrong with me because my house sharing experiences were falling short of what I what I hoped they’d be. Like everyone else I was navigating that spare room hellhole, one of 20,000 people looking at a room and getting rejected over and over again.
I’d present my best self to the world in the office and come home to a space that felt shambolic. I spent my days in an office, wanting to get my life together. I aspired to be the people around me who looked like they had their lives together. Then I’d come home to a flat that felt shambolic. I wanted to go out into the world feeling smart and clean but even getting dressed in the morning was an ordeal – making sure there was enough hot water and time for all the house to wash before work. I really wanted to capture that in Careering. I've got visceral memories of a horrible bathroom in the last house share I lived in which was sold to me as a ‘wet room’, which sounds really fancy and luxurious but was actually a mouldy damp cubicle where your towels never dry.
To win signed paperback copies of all three of Daisy’s books - Insatiable, Careering and Limelight - leave a comment below and I’ll select a winner in a couple of weeks.
I know now how resourceful I am. It’s exhausting when you can't quite ever fully relax, when you're always on the move physically and mentally. Our homes should be our sanctuary but when they’re not, then you’re thinking ‘what do I need to do to get out of here?’ I don't think that's a great way to live and not for a long period of time, it really burns you out. But it does also force you to cultivate skills and resilience.
The magical and awful thing about house sharing is that it’s this kind of lawless, wild west of a town and you never know what you’re going to get. There were some terrible house shares along the way for me so when I finding ones where friendship was at the heart of it was so gorgeous. I remember arriving back from a terrible date and getting home to a fairly new house share I’d moved into. I’d recently broken up with a serious boyfriend and was feeling fragile and was just going to spend the night in my room crying. And then I walked in and my housemates were like ‘Hey, you're home. Great. We're playing Monopoly. And we're getting pizza.’
Like reading a lovely book or a lovely film, I was immediately absorbed in it. I was dumped in that house share and they just made me part of it and we’re still friends now. I don't think we realise how close we are to the people we're living with and it's so extreme. They can be the worst and you resent sharing space with them - or you can love and adore them.
Limelight is out in paperback this Thursday 8th February and you can order it here.
Daisy is offering ADDRESSING readers a 50% discount when they subscribe to the Creative Confidence Clinic where she provides practical and emotional advice and support for writers.
To win signed paperback copies of all three of Daisy’s books - Insatiable, Careering and Limelight - leave a comment below and I’ll select a winner in a couple of weeks.
The books sound great, I would love to read 😍 fab newsletter as always Al x
What a great guest and an interestingly read, would love to read Daisy’s books. Really enjoying your regular newsletters too!