'Gorgeously relatable' début snapped up by Atlantic

Atlatic editor Poppy Mostyn-Owen has pre-empted the "angsty, mordant, gorgeously relatable" debut novel by Canadian author Emily Austin within 24 hours.  

Mostyn-Owen bought UK and Commonwealth excluding Canada rights in Everyone In This Room Will Some Day Be Dead from Nicole Bond at Simon & Schuster US. Atlantic will release the title in July 2021. 

The title, which Atlantic said would appeal to fans of Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times or Halle Butler's The New Me, centres around Gilda, a young woman struggling with acute anxiety who finds herself on the steps of St Rigobert’s Catholic Church after responding to a flyer for free therapy. After a mix-up with Father Jeff, who assumes she is there to interview for the reception job, Gilda is hired to replace the elderly, recently deceased receptionist Grace. Gilda is not qualified—plus is queer and atheist—but soon starts worrying about the investiagtion into Grace’s death.

Mostyn-Owen said: "I love this book. It’s warm, complex, and humane and captured all of us with its candour and relatability. Emily Austin has written both a deft actualisation of what anxiety can feel like and a brilliantly funny misadventure."

Ottawa-based Austin is a writer and poet whose novella, Oh Honey, was published in 2017 by UK indie Holland House Books.