Here she is on one of her visits, explaining her current worry to the receptionist: "I don't want to die in my apartment because I have a cat, and I read that he'll eat my face, and I wouldn't care about that, but I have a family and they're open-casket people."

This is not an untypical example of her problems.

Gilda has lots to be anxious about. Her arm is in a cast after a car accident and she has been fired from her job in a bookstore.

In desperation, she goes to an address where they advertise free mental health support.

It turns out to be a Catholic church which happens to be looking for someone to replace their former receptionist, Grace, whom "we lost to the Lord last month."

Hiding the fact that she is a lesbian and an atheist, Gilda takes on the job and gets on well with the priest, known simply as Jeff.

She has to learn when to say Amen and tries to memorise as many of the Mass responses as she can manage.

Then she finds out that Grace died mysteriously and convinces herself that the poor woman was murdered either by some mass killer or by Jeff or by the church accountant.

Meanwhile, the police seem to think that she was responsible and question her more than once.

All possibilities lead to anxiety and to more ER visits.

In the end, she learns what really happened to Grace and is discussing it with her friend Eleanor. "'Think about it,' I tell her. 'If we discovered a dandelion on a planet beside earth, that would be astounding. The fact that dandelions exist on our planet is therefore astounding'."

There are times when you read this book with a sense of guilt, a feeling that you are colluding with someone who is making a mockery of people who are depressed.

But you will sympathise with Gilda and her fears, especially her fear of death.

She is compulsively kind and generous and helpful to everyone and if she encourages an occasional guffaw from you at her logic and at the irrationality of the situations in which she finds herself, you can be forgiven.

Talking of which, at one stage, she goes to confession to Jeff, not the normal kind that we used to know as kids.

Set in Canada, this is a different kind of book, one that seems to ignore some of the modern trends in fiction - the priest for example, is a genuinely good man - as well as some of the normal rules of layout. Gilda's kindness and her deadpan humour will have a reader looking for more.