Emily Austin

This hilarious and profound debut for fans of Mostly Dead Things and Goodbye, Vitamin, follows a morbidly anxious young woman—“the kindhearted heroine we all need right now” (Courtney Maum, New York Times bestselling author)—who stumbles into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and becomes 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. A delightful blend of warmth, deadpan humor, 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.

A Novel

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

“I interpret her pursed lips as an indication that she is judging me. I responded that I take no medication, which means no birth control, and I responded that there is no chance I could pregnant — consequently suggesting that I am likely celibate. I am not. I am just gay, and this blessedly exempt from the hazard of pregnancy.” 

“I spend a few moments wondering why she asked me to sit. I then begin wondering why it matters to me why she asked me to sit. Why do I need to know what her rationale is? Why can’t I just trust that the people around me have their own justification for their requests and their behavior? Why can’t I be like a dog and sit when I’m asked to, without wondering why?” 

“I never know how to answer that question because I dont 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.”

new thought for baptism has dropped into my brain 

“I bet that baby would be absolutely baffled to hear why she’s enduring this. Imaging someone forced you to wear a miniature wedding gown, dunked you underwater in front of an audience for your loved ones, and then explained that their rationale for doing so was that when you die your spirit would fly to the clouds. If I were this baby, my first episode words would be “fuck off.”” 

“My mother had a baby, and her mother had a baby, and her mother had a baby. Every woman in my family before me lived to have a baby — just so that baby could grow up to have another baby. If I don’t have a baby, then all of those women reproduced just so that I could exist. I am the final product. I am the final baby.” 

“You’re a stupid bitch!” he yells. “Fuck you!” I realize as he continues to shout defamatory names that he was just insulting me using the random slurs that came to his mind and is not actually aware that I am gay.” 

Mary Rose Gibson

I remember being sixteen and feeling eleven. I remember thinking, how could I be a teenager? I remember finishing high school and thinking, am I grown now? Is this what it feels like? I feel the same as I did before. I think I am an imposter. Twenty-seven years ago I was a baby. Before that I was a clump of cells. Before that I didn’t exist. How could I be a bookstore clerk, or a Catholic, or a woman, or a person at all? I’m a life force contained in the deformed body of a baby. Of course I’m a fraud. The fact that I’m able to carry myself through life without being crushed beneath the psychological weight of being alive proves that I’m a con artist. Aren’t we all con artists?

Vicky

Sometimes I fixate on how disgusting humans are. I think about how we do things like litter and invent nuclear bombs. I think about racism, war, rape, child abuse, and climate change. I think about how gross people are. I think about public bathrooms, armpits, and about all of our dirty hands. I think about how infection and diseases are spread. I think about how every human has a butt, and about how disgusting that is.

Lindsay

Sometimes I wonder if I have really been the same person my whole life. I stare at the picture, and think: Is that really me? I have this bizarre feeling like I was a different person at every other stage of my life. I feel so removed from myself then. Sometimes I feel like I was a different person a month ago. A day. Five minutes. Now.

The fact that I’m able to carry myself through life without being crushed beneath the psychological weight of being alive proves that I’m a con artist. Aren’t we all con artists?

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