Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

'Funny about death, real about anxiety, witty about the things that worry us the most' Emma Gannon, author of Olive 'So fundamentally kind that you can feel the warmth coming off each page' Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Starling DaysGilda 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.

What an absolutely gorgeous book. Funny about death, real about anxiety, witty about the things that worry us the most, with the most endearing kind-hearted cast of characters., Gilda's overwhelming questions about the nature of existence don't go away; transformed by love, they turn into wonder instead., Darkly humorous... Austin has crafted her oddball heroine so tenderly that you will her on to find a way out of the chaos., The perfect blend of macabre and funny, As funny as the novel is, it's equally dark and intensely harrowing. This debut is profound for its honest portrayal of mental health in a chaotic modern world, giving space for humour and tenderness while reckoning with the absurdity of the human condition.

Emily Austin was born in Ontario, Canada. She studied English literature and library science at Western University. She currently lives in Ottawa.