Anne Gisleson
Autor de The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading
Sobre El Autor
Anne Gisleson's work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Oxford American, The Believer, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications, and has been selected for several anthologies, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Gisleson teaches at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and mostrar más lives in New Orleans with her husband and their two sons. mostrar menos
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Much more a personal memoir than a book about a book group (the “our year” in the subtitle led me to expect a broader approach to the group's experiences), Gisleson organizes her musings on grief, loss, renewal, and what might give life meaning when one is faced with loneliness and death, around a year of book group meetings. Gisleson, a mother of young children and third daughter in a tight knit family of eight children, works feelings of grief and futility over the loss by suicide of her two youngest sisters, of her father by cancer, and of the terrible destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on her city, New Orleans.
For some reason it took quite a while before I really felt engaged by this one – for the first half or so, Gisleson seemed a little too angsty and self-indulgent. By the June meeting, though, which included John Cheever's story, “The Swimmer,” I was hooked. I really enjoyed the way the different readings, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, offered such varied perspectives. One of my favorite bits, though, was from a piece Gisleson wrote and presented at a literary event, with a background story of her father's death, a condolence letter from one of her lawyer father's death row clients, and the John Cusack movie, “Hot Tub Time Machine,” (and a nod to Dante, lost in the dark wood, “midway on our life's journey”)...
For some reason it took quite a while before I really felt engaged by this one – for the first half or so, Gisleson seemed a little too angsty and self-indulgent. By the June meeting, though, which included John Cheever's story, “The Swimmer,” I was hooked. I really enjoyed the way the different readings, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, offered such varied perspectives. One of my favorite bits, though, was from a piece Gisleson wrote and presented at a literary event, with a background story of her father's death, a condolence letter from one of her lawyer father's death row clients, and the John Cusack movie, “Hot Tub Time Machine,” (and a nod to Dante, lost in the dark wood, “midway on our life's journey”)...
”Though I'm starting to think that the dark wood isn't really so bad. Sometimes you run into people you know, sometimes sympathetic strangers. There can be camaraderie there, like, Hey, we're here together in the dark wood, can I pour you some more of this bourbon, can you recommend a good book? Was the letter from Death Row another low branch across the path or was it the murky green light that filters in between branches? And what about your kids? They're happy enough, they're fine, you can hear them in the sunny clearing nearby and you can always go join them. Sometimes you think it would be nice if we could widen these paths, make it easier for our kids when it's their turn in the dark wood. But I think the best thing we can do is make sure they're equipped. They can bring their own machetes, their own bourbon.”… (más)
3.5 - 4 stars
The Futilitarians is a weightier book than I normally choose to read, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The book is heavy on philosophy, a subject I honestly did not know very much about before I read The Futilitarians. Anne Gisleson and her husband Brad chose to create the Existential Crisis Reading Group (nicknamed The Futilitarians) to focus on the question of how people move on in the face of great loss. Anne lost two younger sisters to suicide, weathered Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and lost her father to cancer. Feeling burdened by her many losses, she strove to find a way to carry on using the group’s monthly meetings and reading choices as a path to recovery.
Gisleson chronicles a year of the Futilitarians’ meetings including their reading choices for each month. I enjoyed some months more than others but learned a lot as I followed her path to find meaning in her life. I am glad I received it as part of Little, Brown’s Ambassador program; I doubt I would not have chosen it myself, and it was well worth the read. All opinions are my own.… (más)
The Futilitarians is a weightier book than I normally choose to read, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The book is heavy on philosophy, a subject I honestly did not know very much about before I read The Futilitarians. Anne Gisleson and her husband Brad chose to create the Existential Crisis Reading Group (nicknamed The Futilitarians) to focus on the question of how people move on in the face of great loss. Anne lost two younger sisters to suicide, weathered Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and lost her father to cancer. Feeling burdened by her many losses, she strove to find a way to carry on using the group’s monthly meetings and reading choices as a path to recovery.
Gisleson chronicles a year of the Futilitarians’ meetings including their reading choices for each month. I enjoyed some months more than others but learned a lot as I followed her path to find meaning in her life. I am glad I received it as part of Little, Brown’s Ambassador program; I doubt I would not have chosen it myself, and it was well worth the read. All opinions are my own.… (más)
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I chose to read the book for its New Orleans connection, and though I sometimes found it pretentious (and there's lots of drinking), I liked her evocation of New Orleans's unique ambience--the food, Mardi Gras, and yes, the cemeteries.… (más)