The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading

Gisleson faced much loss, as did many of her friends and family living in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. Instead of succumbing to despair, the author and her compatriots formed the Existential Crisis Reading Group (ECRG). There is wine, there are novels, but the book of choice is not the latest cozy mystery. In this New Orleans pseudo-Bohemian group, the readings and gatherings are designed to parse meaning from tragedy. Interspersed throughout, with insightful literary analysis from the ECRG readings, is Gisleson's own family's stories. Her younger sisters, twins, both commit suicide within months of each other. Her father dies of a bacterial infection. Her husband loses his partner, the mother of his son, six months before meeting Gisleson. Through these experiences, the author reveals that meaning exists when we are willing to look for it and interpret what we see, a search made even more powerful when its done with friends. Themes of fellowship and family override what might at first seem like a depressing endeavor.