Notes From Your BooksellerHilarious and profound is a rare — and delightful — combination in a novel. This charming, big-hearted debut features a wonderful, plain-spoken and death-obsessed heroine named Gilda who readers will root for as she navigates accidental employment, mistaken identity (she can explain!), and finding your voice is a wonderful comfort read that will appeal to fans of Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. In this “fun, page-turner of a novel” (Sarah Haywood, New York Times bestselling author) that’s perfect for fans of Mostly Dead Things and Goodbye, Vitamin, a morbidly anxious young woman stumbles into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and soon finds herself obsessed with her predecessor’s mysterious death. Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace. In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence. With a “kindhearted heroine we all need right now” (Courtney Maum, New York Times bestselling author), Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling and “delightfully weird reminder that we will one day turn to dust and that yes, this is depressing, but it’s also what makes life beautiful” (Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl). Product DetailsISBN-13: 9781982167363 Media Type: Paperback Publisher: Washington Square Press Publication Date: 06-28-2022 Pages: 256 Product Dimensions: 8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.80(d)About the Author Emily R. Austin was born in Ontario, Canada, and received a writing grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts in 2020. She studied English literature and library science at Western University. She currently lives in Ottawa. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is her first novel.Reading Group Guide Reading Group Guide This reading group guide for Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Emily Austin. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. Introduction In this darkly funny and utterly profound debut, Gilda, a twentysomething atheist lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. She accidentally stumbles into a job as a receptionist for a Catholic church, and in between trying to memorize the lines to mass, hiding the fact that she has a girlfriend, and watching the dirty-dish tower in her apartment grow ever higher, Gilda becomes obsessed with her work predecessor’s mysterious death. Full of delightfully awkward predicaments and pitch-perfect observations about the human condition, this novel is for anyone who searches for meaning in a chaotic world where they feel like an outsider, watching the daily rituals of life unfold as if through binoculars. Topics & Questions for Discussion 1. Gilda takes a job at a Catholic church despite being a lesbian atheist, which seems distinctly antithetical, and part of the fun is watching this situation unfold. Do you think Gilda’s attempts to hide who she is at work have a detrimental effect on her? Or is Gilda used to hiding things about herself? 2. Gilda’s parents both seem to be unable to face difficult realities. How do you think her parent’s—and, in particular, her dad’s—reactions to her behavior as a child affected her as she grew up? How do you think they affect both Gilda and Eli now that they’re adults? 3. Do you think it surprises Gilda when she hears Jeff crying after the death of a teenager from the congregation? How does witnessing someone else’s grief affect Gilda, who is constantly anxious about peoples’ deaths? 4. In what ways does working in the church subvert Gilda’s (and perhaps our own) expectations of what the experience will be like for her? 5. What do Gilda’s experiences with the health care system reveal to us about how acute anxiety is managed (or mismanaged) by health care professionals? How could her visits have been handled differently? 6. Gilda believes that Eleanor is trying to steal her identity when they first start messaging on a dating app. Does this allow Gilda to act differently—and more candidly—with Eleanor than with her previous matches? Why do you think this is the case? 7. Gilda’s anxieties throughout the novel can often be debilitating. They leave her unable to do dishes or shower, they cause her to obsess over things she can’t control (like the missing cat), and they often cause her to break into tears or have panic attacks at inconvenient times. What is it like for the reader to experience life through Gilda’s eyes? How did that affect you? Was it eye-opening or deeply familiar for you? Do you share her fears and, if so, to what extent? 8. As we see, Gilda often says yes to offers—the job at the church, the date with Giuseppe, etc.—when they are presented to her. Why do you think she does this? 9. How does Gilda’s worldview contrast with Giuseppe’s opinion that you can do anything you’d like in life as long as you believe that you can? 10. Gilda often hides what she’s thinking, like just how much she’s preoccupied with death, etc. How do these small omissions snowball into bigger ones? At what point does personal information about your own anxieties become necessary to share so that you can live as authentically as possible? 11. Gilda’s focus on death and the chaotic realities of existence can make societal conventions (such as what’s considered a sin) seem small in comparison. How does this contrast of existential dread shine a light on the rules and conventions that so many of us abide by? In your opinion, does it make them seem more trivial and nonsensical? Or does the acknowledgement of death help give meaning to existence? 12. In some ways, Gilda is very preoccupied with existence and the meaninglessness of our temporary lives, and in other ways, she cares deeply the details that shape the lives of humans and animals. How do these seemingly opposite notions seem to coexist or push against each other in her mind? 13. Barney tells Gilda that the characteristics of psychopaths are having been bullied as a child, committing petty crimes, and being chronically unemployed, which we know are all criteria that fit Gilda. What do you think it means to her to hear that she fits the profile? Do you think we paint with too broad a brush when we talk about people with mental illnesses? 14. Why do you think Gilda is fixated on hands—her own and other people’s? Why does she think so much about how they are the same hands throughout people’s whole lives? Enhance Your Book Club 1. This book has been compared to the show Fleabag. Watch both seasons of Fleabag (or choose select episodes) and discuss how the portrayals of the two young women—Gilda and Fleabag—are both similar to and different from one another. 2. In the latter half of the novel, both Barney and Gilda try to solve Grace’s apparent murder. Do the members of your book club have a fascination with true crime? If so, discuss what documentaries/docuseries, books, or podcasts you’ve seen/read/listened to. Have you ever played an amateur sleuth, whether in your own life or in trying to solve more famous crimes? 3. If this book were made into a film, TV series, or play, who would your dream cast for the characters in the book be? A Conversation with Emily Austin Q: This book is so beautifully written that we feel like we’re experiencing Gilda’s reality while we read it. If you don’t mind sharing, how much of this perspective (anxieties, existential dread, thinking about death, and caring deeply about others’ happiness) do you share with our main character versus how much of it did you draw from your imagination or research? A: Thank you! I do have an anxiety disorder and struggles with depression, and there are some thoughts represented in this book that belong to both Gilda and me. There are also areas where we differ, though. I have close friends and family who I also drew from. One of my sisters used to wake my mom up to cry about how she would die one day, for example. Q: In that same vein, what other portrayals of anxiety and depression did you pull from—in books, movies, tv shows, etc.—in order to create Gilda’s character? A: I went to therapy while writing this book and was given some material from my psychologist about anxiety and how it manifests. Gilda not feeling the pain in her broken arm was a symptom I remember reading in that material. I also listened to a lot of music by Phoebe Bridgers and Muna while writing this. I think I drew from that sometimes too. Q: Pets like the cat and rabbit come up multiple times throughout the book. Why did you choose to weave the story of the rabbit throughout Gilda’s present story line? A: A pet dying is often the first experience a person has with death, and it made sense to me that Gilda would struggle to ever get over that first experience. Q: A large part of the book tak