A review by an_enthusiastic_reader
The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading by Anne Gisleson

5.0

I'm giving this memoir five stars, not because it is perfectly written, but because it is so well-considered by the author and because for me it's the right book for our perilous and uncertain time. If ever there's a need for community and doubt and an exploration of the Tragic vs. Trivial planes of existence, it's now.

The memoir covers a single year, 2012, of monthly meetings for contemplating works of art that question our purpose. Woven into analysis of the works that were chosen is the story of Gisleon's family history: her challenging and larger than life father and all his contradictions, the elision of her mother from hard truths about family secrets, and her tragic sisters' early and self-chosen deaths. It seems at the beginning like this might be superficial, but it's anything but. I felt a connection to the stories and the primal need for community that comes through deliberative acts of wanting to learn more. New Orleans and the catastrophic Katrina also play a major role in this memoir, brought more to light and to bear by the hurricane in Houston.

I would like more people to read this book.