'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 once held as a student. This begins a negotiation between the practical and creative demands of her life, further complicated when she becomes pregnant and almost impossible when the pandemic hits.

At Trinity, Lally and her colleagues move through empty, hallowed libraries and notice the cleaner-shaped blind spots of feminist conference attendees. At home, she is raising two children who don’t sleep. And the success of her first book makes her second novel seem even more arduous. For her own good, she leans into the hyperfocus of cleaning and running.

In her first memoir, Lally writes with scrupulous honesty and humour about the colliding parts of her selfhood: the mother who is a cleaner so that she can be a writer. 

'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

'Hilarious, audacious, and deeply felt. An idiosyncratic hymn to the drudgery of life!'  Sara Baume

'I thought I’d be interested in Home Economics because I too work a manual job that pays a pittance, yet still provides more income than writing books. And yes, Lally is wonderfully insightful about the difficulties and advantages of such a life. But in the end it was her wit, her ever-curious and amused outlook on the daily trials and joys of life, that had me hooked. This book has that delicate quality of seeming simple while containing all the complexity of trying not simply to make a living, but to live.'  Lucy Sweeney Byrne