Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
Emily R. Austin
A BUZZFEED 'HIGHLY ANTICIPATED BOOK' FOR 2021 Meet Gilda. She cannot stop thinking about death. Desperate for relief from her anxious mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local church and finds herself abruptly hired to replace the deceased receptionist Grace. It's not the most obvious job - she's queer and an atheist for starters - and so in between trying to learn mass, hiding her new maybe-girlfriend and conducting an amateur investigation into Grace's death, Gilda must avoid revealing the truth of her mortifying existence. A blend of warmth, deadpan humour, and pitch-perfect observations about the human condition, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling exploration of what it takes to stay afloat in a world where your expiration - and the expiration of those you love - is the only certainty.
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I really enjoyed this book! I think there were some loose strings that didn't quite get tied up or were mentioned but not followed up on (like the brother's alcoholism, how Jeff/Barney respond to her voicemail, etc.), which was a bit frustrating. However, I thought this book portrayed mental illness in a very realistic way and was a very easy read. I enjoyed the discussions of humanity, existentialism, sexuality, religion, and living a meaningful life.
* “when did you come out?” Eleanor asked me… i never know how to answer that question because i don’t feel like i am out. i feel like i am in a constant state of coming out, and like i always will be. i have to come out every time i meet someone. we were at a restaurant. earlier the waitress asked us if we were sisters. neither of us came out to her; we just said no. technically, therefore, i was not out at that Applebee’s. (51-52)
* i came to the realization that every moment exists in perpetuity regardless of whether it’s remembered. what has happened has happened; it occupies that moment in time forever. i was an eleven-year-old girl lying in the grass one summer. i knew in that moment that was true and recognized that i would blaze through moments for the rest of my life, forgetting things, and becoming ages older, until i forgot everything—so i consoled myself by committing to remember that one moment. (164)
* the only time i have been happy at all recently was when i was watching a movie with Eleanor and she was laughing. when i think about the Catholic church, and about most religions in general, my theory is that they came to be as a solution to our existential dread. it’s comforting to imagine that everyone who is dead is just waiting for us in the next room. it’s calming to imagine that we have an all-powerful father who is watching over us, and who loves us. all of it makes us feel like our lives have some divine meaning; it helps us feel happy. it’s ironic that a belief system theoretically created to help me feel safe and meaningful takes away one of the few things that makes me feel like my life is worth living at all. (170)
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