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Author:

Gisleson, Anne, author.

Title:

The Futilitarians : our year of thinking, drinking, grieving, and reading / Anne Gisleson.

Edition:

First edition.

Publisher:

LittleBrown and Company,

Copyright Date:

2017

Description:

260 pages ; 25 cm

Subject:

Gisleson, Anne.
Grief--Biography.
Loss (Psychology)--Biography.
Book clubs (Discussion groups)--New Orleans.--New Orleans.
Books and reading--Psychological aspects.
Books and reading--Social aspects.
Bibliotherapy.
New Orleans (La.)--Biography.
Autobiographies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-260).

Contents:

January: All is vanity -- February: World of stone -- March: The belly of the whale -- April: The last suffer; or, The way of the crisis (Via Dolorosa) -- May: The dark wood -- June: Voices over water -- July: The least dead among all of us -- August: The metaphysical hangover -- September: The walled city -- October: The unwalled city -- November: Nineveh -- December: Sharing bread -- New Year's Eve: Tanks versus chickens.

Summary:

"A memoir of friendship and literature, chronicling a search for meaning and comfort in great books, and a beautiful path out of grief. Anne Gisleson had lost her twin sisters, been forced to flee her home during Hurricane Katrina, and witnessed cancer take her beloved father. Before she met her husband, Brad, he had suffered his own trauma, losing his partner--the mother of his son--to cancer in her early thirties. 'How do we keep moving forward,' Anne asks, 'amid all this loss and threat?' The answer: 'We do it together.' Anne and Brad, in the midst of forging their happiness, found that their friends had been suffering their own losses and crises as well: loved ones gone, rocky marriages, tricky child-rearing, jobs lost or gained, financial insecurities or unexpected windfalls. Together these resilient New Orleanians formed what they called the Existential Crisis Reading Group, which they jokingly dubbed 'the Futilitarians.' From Epicurus to Tolstoy, from Cheever to Amis to Lispector, each month they read and talked about identity, parenting, love, mortality and life in post-Katrina New Orleans. In the year after her father's death, these living-room gatherings provided a sustenance Anne craved, fortifying her and helping her blaze a trail out of her well-worn grief. More than that, this fellowship allowed her finally to commune with her sisters on the page, and to tell the story of her family that had remained long untold. Written with wisdom, soul, and a playful sense of humor, The Futilitarians is a guide to living curiously and fully, and a testament to the way that even from the toughest soil of sorrow, beauty and wonder can bloom."--Jacket.

ISBN:

9780316393904
0316393908

OCLC:

(OCoLC)965766497

Locations:

BOPG851 -- Ames Public Library (Ames)

GBPF771 -- Ankeny Kirkendall Public Library (Ankeny)

TYPH572 -- Cedar Rapids Public Library (Cedar Rapids)

CBPF522 -- Coralville Public Library (Coralville)

BAPH771 -- Des Moines Public Library (Des Moines)

ALPE516 -- Fairfield Public Library (Fairfield)

KAPF566 -- Keokuk Public Library (Keokuk)

BEPA251 -- Linden Public Library (Linden)

YEPF572 -- Marion Public Library (Marion)

AAPF906 -- Ottumwa Public Library (Ottumwa)

GEPG771 -- West Des Moines Public Library (West Des Moines)