Living with existential anxiety: On Emily Austin’s “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead”
“‘It’s important to remember that every day that passes brings us closer to the day that we die,’” says Father Jeff, a Catholic priest in Emily Austin’s debut novel, “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.” The congregation nods along, eyes bright and untroubled, because if you believe in eternal life, those kinds of thoughts might not rattle you. But what if you don’t believe in an afterlife? What if you find it ridiculous that humans have friends, hands, clothing? What if, for you, nothing really means anything? Gilda, the protagonist of the novel, falls in the latter camp. And it’s not just from Father Jeff that she hears such ruminations on death—her own pathologically anxious inner voice bombards her with thoughts that make her so terrified, so utterly disconnected from life, that at times death itself seems a pleasant alternative to living with morbid anxiety.
The plot of this novel sounds farcical, but Austin writes it in a way that is utterly believable. We first meet Gilda just after the world’s tiniest car crash, which is described in fitting hyperbole: Gilda sees total black, there is shattered glass and smoke, a woman is screaming. But all that actually happened was a van bumped into the back of Gilda’s car, the airbag inflated, and she punched herself in the face. Gilda’s arm is put in a cast (which a child promptly decorates with a drawing of a penis with eyes), and she is handed a leaflet advertising free therapy by a kind old lady. She is disappointed to learn that these sessions are based at a Catholic Church, which Gilda suspects might not be the most welcoming environment for an atheist lesbian like her. But before Gilda can escape, Father Jeff mistakes her for a job applicant for the recently vacated position of Church Secretary, and she, too embarrassed to correct him, does the interview. Father Jeff is astonished to learn that Gilda not only knows how to turn a computer on, but how to use the internet, and even email. That’s all it takes to land the job, and Gilda starts work without Jeff thinking to ask for reference or background check.
Cover, Emily Austin’s “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead” from Atlantic Books, July 8, 2021 | Fair Use
Gilda learns that the position of secretary was only available because her predecessor Grace died recently. This adds yet more fuel to Gilda’s morbid anxiety. When she sees an email from Grace’s dear friend Rosemary, whose husband has only recently passed away, Gilda is too soft-hearted to break the news of Grace’s death, so she pings back a reply to Rosemary, signing it with Grace’s name.
But the conversation doesn’t end there. Gilda ends up impersonating Grace over a long email exchange with Rosemary, and the longer it goes on, the more difficult it becomes for her to stop. Offline, she finds that she’s rather good at playing the happy, straight, homophobic, Catholic, secretary lady, and is so convincing that a member of the congregation sets her up with a well-meaning but slightly repellent relative called Giuseppe, who works as a life coach, has sweat patches, and tells Gilda she needs to eat more kale. Ironically, during all of this, the one thing that makes Gilda happy—her relationship with her new girlfriend, Eleanor—is the thing that’s most important to keep a secret from the Church. But Gilda can’t hide her identity forever, and when the truth comes out, things fall apart.
When reading this novel, one question keeps popping up—what is Gilda’s problem? At first glance, it seems to be that she can’t figure out what the point is of being alive, if one day we’re all going to die anyway. But there are also comparatively mundane issues in Gilda’s life – her brother’s addiction, the mess in her apartment, losing her job at a bookshop. She feels anxious that she doesn’t fit in anywhere, and this leads her to make the terrible decision of taking a job at a Church; she becomes the imposter she believes herself to be, leading to even more feelings of estrangement and even more negative thoughts. In every single area of her life, Gilda passively repeats along this toxic cycle where she behaves oddly because of her anxiety, which gives her more negative thoughts, which makes her behave even more strangely, which makes her even more anxious.
Austin presents this as a lucid rendering of what it is to live with chronic anxiety, and it is both compelling and psychologically accurate. Such feedback loops are part of the theory behind Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, one of the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders and depression like Gilda’s. It’s only when Gilda changes her behaviors—in as simple ways as doing the dishes, keeping clean, eating regularly—that she begins to see an impact on her thoughts and feelings. As such, I would recommend this novel just for its exploration of anxiety, especially to anyone currently struggling with their mental health (read: anyone living through a worldwide pandemic).
But that’s not to suggest that “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead” is a heavy read. For me, despite the novel’s focus on anxiety, depression, self-harm, and, of course, death, it’s ultimately a hilarious, touchingly warm, and immensely readable novel, with lightness even in the darkest moments. This comes from Austin’s addictively witty writing style, the onomatopoeia, the nostalgia a COVID-era reader can find in the pre-COVID world, and Gilda’s overwhelming empathy for other living beings, human or otherwise. Despite all her problems and the appalling ways she sometimes treats others, we’re always rooting for Gilda, right through to the end. Gilda never does figure out what the point is of being alive when death is always waiting for us, and she doesn’t solve all her problems. But what she does do is arguably far more important—she figures out how to live life anyway.
Image credit: From the Oregon DOT, March 30, 2020 (Wikimedia Commons | CC BY 2.0)
