Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Simon & Schuster (2018), Edition: Reprint, 336 pages
Description
"Built on her wildly popular Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a breathtaking memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38 year old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years, after her terminal cancer diagnosis"-- "An exquisite memoir about how to live--and love--every day with 'death in the room,' from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air. 'We are breathless, but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other.' Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer--one small spot. Within a year, the mother of two sons, ages seven and nine, and married sixteen years to her best friend, received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal. How does one live each day, 'unattached to outcome'? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty? Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs's breathtaking memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in his gorgeous When Breath Becomes Air. She asks, what makes a meaningful life when one has limited time? Brilliantly written, disarmingly funny, and deeply moving, The Bright Hour is about how to love all the days, even the bad ones, and it's about the way literature, especially Emerson, and Nina's other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. It's a book about looking death squarely in the face and saying 'this is what will be.' Especially poignant in these uncertain times, The Bright Hour urges us to live well and not lose sight of what makes us human: love, art, music, words"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member detailmuse
Thirty-eight-year-old Nina Riggs writes her memoir of metastatic breast cancer in snippets and vignettes that are gently illuminating and often funny despite a tragic outcome. She’s not overtly sad here. Instead, she’s thoughtful and philosophical as she turns to the writings of Montaigne and
"So, you’re watching a cancer show?" [Nina's husband] says sheepishly. "Why would you do that?"
"I don’t know," [she says]. "I guess it makes me feel a little more normal. Plus it has really terrible writing, so it makes me laugh."
I ask a version of that question to myself ("So I’m reading a cancer memoir -- why would I do that?") and come up with a partly identical answer. It puts my own non-cancer problems in perspective ... plus it has really lovely writing, so it fills me with awe.
(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)
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of her great-great-great-grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, to deal not only with her own treatment and mortality but also her mother’s death from myeloma and her young son’s diagnosis with diabetes."So, you’re watching a cancer show?" [Nina's husband] says sheepishly. "Why would you do that?"
"I don’t know," [she says]. "I guess it makes me feel a little more normal. Plus it has really terrible writing, so it makes me laugh."
I ask a version of that question to myself ("So I’m reading a cancer memoir -- why would I do that?") and come up with a partly identical answer. It puts my own non-cancer problems in perspective ... plus it has really lovely writing, so it fills me with awe.
(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)
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LibraryThing member Susan.Macura
This is a heartbreaking and uplifting story of a young mother diagnosed with terminal breast cancer who chronicles her life both before and during treatment. She leaves this legacy for her children. It was an amazing book.
LibraryThing member meandmybooks
I don't know what to say about this, except that it's lovely. Beautiful and sad, but also really funny. Well, and just really real. Riggs faces her illness and awareness of her mortality with such powerful courage and insight, honesty and humor. She has a fierce passion to dig deep, to fully
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experience, to discover and explore the fullness of everything she is dealing with, to recognize the beautiful and profound, and to think through and articulate her fears and hopes. As much as possible, given her illness and the exhausting treatments, she is determined not to miss the everyday moments of beauty and sweetness with her children, friends, and family. As she says to her husband early on in the book, “I have to love these days in the same way I love any other. There might not be a 'normal' from here on out.” I love the wideness and depth of her sympathy – her ability to appreciate the struggles of others even as she is suffering herself. And I love how she brings in Montaigne and Emerson, all mixed in with reflections and stories about her children, parents, travels, and treatments. Show Less
LibraryThing member Goodlorde
I debated with myself for weeks over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously unsympathetic to the
However, at some point it dawned on me during my self-debate that I'm fortunate to live in a country in which conscientious and compassionate individuals can express their opinion without fear of being harshly castigated. So with that said, I was initially drawn to The Bright Hour by the many glowingly supportive reviews and blurbs I'd discovered. It was clear to me that the book's publishers decided to promote the memoir by comparing it to the truly remarkable memoir When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. For anyone who's read and loved Kalanithi's memoir, such a comparison is indeed very high praise. So I came to Riggs' memoir with high expectations. I'd even read somewhere that Riggs' widow and Kalanithi's widow went on a dual promotional book tour together.
And so, while reading the early portions of the book, I felt good about having decided to read it. However, about halfway through the book, something about it began not to sit well with me and I gradually began to lose interest in reading it anymore. This was puzzling to me at first; primarily because of the overwhelmingly positive press the book continues to receive and also because I so wanted to deeply appreciate a book written by a published poet who quotes extensively from her distant relative Ralph Waldo Emerson and Montaigne. On top of which, there are some passages in the book that impressed me initially, at least, as imaginatively poetic.
I should also say I am a big devote of reading memoirs like When Breath Becomes Air; that is, memoirs written by people with truly extraordinary stories to tell, and which are told in compelling ways. Other such memoirs that I believe fall in that category are Why I Left Goldman Sachs, Dying to Be Me, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, and Do the KIND Thing: Think Boundlessly, Work Purposefully, Live Passionately.
Where Riggs' memoir differs from these books, I find, is that while it's truly heartbreaking that Riggs was diagnosed with cancer and she deserves some credit for writing an articulate memoir while surely suffering the pain of her cancer and the side effects of her chemotherapy; what I realized is that the life Riggs lived before and after her cancer diagnosis was glaringly average and quotidian. For example, she spends one passage contemplating whether she should splurge her and her husband's money on an expensive, new sofa; Riggs admits that she and her husband had never previously bought a new sofa during their marriage.
Moreover, I question why her distant kinship with Emerson would have, in and of itself, warranted her extensively quoting him throughout the book. (Not surprisingly, the title of the book is taken from a passage by Emerson.) I was also puzzled why Riggs quotes repeatedly from Montaigne. Her quoting of Emerson and Montaigne certainly gives her book a veneer of high literary cache. Finally, what really ruined this book for me is that, in my final analysis, Riggs failed to write compellingly enough about her otherwise routine life.
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story of a woman who was courageous enough to tell the poignant story of her suffering through the throes of cancer and chemotherapy, and all while raising her two children, being a devoted wife, and caring for her mother who also suffered and eventually passed away from cancer.However, at some point it dawned on me during my self-debate that I'm fortunate to live in a country in which conscientious and compassionate individuals can express their opinion without fear of being harshly castigated. So with that said, I was initially drawn to The Bright Hour by the many glowingly supportive reviews and blurbs I'd discovered. It was clear to me that the book's publishers decided to promote the memoir by comparing it to the truly remarkable memoir When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. For anyone who's read and loved Kalanithi's memoir, such a comparison is indeed very high praise. So I came to Riggs' memoir with high expectations. I'd even read somewhere that Riggs' widow and Kalanithi's widow went on a dual promotional book tour together.
And so, while reading the early portions of the book, I felt good about having decided to read it. However, about halfway through the book, something about it began not to sit well with me and I gradually began to lose interest in reading it anymore. This was puzzling to me at first; primarily because of the overwhelmingly positive press the book continues to receive and also because I so wanted to deeply appreciate a book written by a published poet who quotes extensively from her distant relative Ralph Waldo Emerson and Montaigne. On top of which, there are some passages in the book that impressed me initially, at least, as imaginatively poetic.
I should also say I am a big devote of reading memoirs like When Breath Becomes Air; that is, memoirs written by people with truly extraordinary stories to tell, and which are told in compelling ways. Other such memoirs that I believe fall in that category are Why I Left Goldman Sachs, Dying to Be Me, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, and Do the KIND Thing: Think Boundlessly, Work Purposefully, Live Passionately.
Where Riggs' memoir differs from these books, I find, is that while it's truly heartbreaking that Riggs was diagnosed with cancer and she deserves some credit for writing an articulate memoir while surely suffering the pain of her cancer and the side effects of her chemotherapy; what I realized is that the life Riggs lived before and after her cancer diagnosis was glaringly average and quotidian. For example, she spends one passage contemplating whether she should splurge her and her husband's money on an expensive, new sofa; Riggs admits that she and her husband had never previously bought a new sofa during their marriage.
Moreover, I question why her distant kinship with Emerson would have, in and of itself, warranted her extensively quoting him throughout the book. (Not surprisingly, the title of the book is taken from a passage by Emerson.) I was also puzzled why Riggs quotes repeatedly from Montaigne. Her quoting of Emerson and Montaigne certainly gives her book a veneer of high literary cache. Finally, what really ruined this book for me is that, in my final analysis, Riggs failed to write compellingly enough about her otherwise routine life.
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LibraryThing member kaylaraeintheway
This memoir, about a woman dying of breast cancer, is heart-wrenching, funny, poignant, and pretty much amazing. Everyone should read this. Don't have much more to say than that!
LibraryThing member ASKelmore
Best for: People who enjoy memoirs such as When Breath Becomes Air
In a nutshell: Now-deceased writer Nina Riggs documents her illness from diagnosis onward
Line that sticks with me: “These are the things we all say at the end of book club now: ‘I love you.’ Of course we do. Why haven’t we
Why I chose it: Memoir + death = A Lollygagger staple.
Review: Author Nina Riggs gives us a gift with this book, in that it isn’t filled with terror and it isn’t overly optimistic. I’d imagine that both of those styles of memoir are necessary for people depending on how they view life, but it seems necessary to also have a book that deals with illness and terminal diagnoses via a third path. I won’t say this is more ‘realistic’ that a book full of fear or of hope, because I know everyone experiences life differently.
Ms. Riggs has two sons, but this isn’t a book addressed directly to them (although in the acknowledgments her husband confirms that they hope their sons will better know their mother as they read and re-read it over the years). It isn’t directed to her husband. It doesn’t even feel as though it is directed at women facing similar life events. It’s just a book that explores life and death via the unexpected twists and the fully expected turns. And it is lovely.
Ms. Riggs is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, so there is a lot of discussion of nature and of him. She is also a very big fan of Montaigne, so he pops up frequently as well. But so do her best friends, and family, and neighbors. She takes her kids to school. She goes through radiation treatment. She buys a wig. She goes on vacation. She has moments of fear and panic, but even she acknowledges that the movie version of her life will likely have more dramatic scenes than her reality.
Her writing style is lovely. The chapters are often very short (sometimes only a paragraph), and while it could have ventured into overly flowery language, it straddles that line of near poetry and reality.
In a nutshell: Now-deceased writer Nina Riggs documents her illness from diagnosis onward
Line that sticks with me: “These are the things we all say at the end of book club now: ‘I love you.’ Of course we do. Why haven’t we
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been saying that all along?”Why I chose it: Memoir + death = A Lollygagger staple.
Review: Author Nina Riggs gives us a gift with this book, in that it isn’t filled with terror and it isn’t overly optimistic. I’d imagine that both of those styles of memoir are necessary for people depending on how they view life, but it seems necessary to also have a book that deals with illness and terminal diagnoses via a third path. I won’t say this is more ‘realistic’ that a book full of fear or of hope, because I know everyone experiences life differently.
Ms. Riggs has two sons, but this isn’t a book addressed directly to them (although in the acknowledgments her husband confirms that they hope their sons will better know their mother as they read and re-read it over the years). It isn’t directed to her husband. It doesn’t even feel as though it is directed at women facing similar life events. It’s just a book that explores life and death via the unexpected twists and the fully expected turns. And it is lovely.
Ms. Riggs is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, so there is a lot of discussion of nature and of him. She is also a very big fan of Montaigne, so he pops up frequently as well. But so do her best friends, and family, and neighbors. She takes her kids to school. She goes through radiation treatment. She buys a wig. She goes on vacation. She has moments of fear and panic, but even she acknowledges that the movie version of her life will likely have more dramatic scenes than her reality.
Her writing style is lovely. The chapters are often very short (sometimes only a paragraph), and while it could have ventured into overly flowery language, it straddles that line of near poetry and reality.
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LibraryThing member LMJenkins
I’m approaching the end of this book and it’s exquisite but torturously sad. Her sentences are perfect and as I read them, I am feeling what she must have felt or a fragment of it: knowing you’re about to leave your two beautiful boys forever, much too early. 💔
LibraryThing member AliceaP
Well, here I am talking about cancer and dying again. I swear it's the last of these for a good long while, guys. (I hope I don't end up eating my words.) The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs was recommended to me after reading When Breath Becomes Air because Nina's widowed
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husband is now dating the widow of Paul Kalinithi who wrote the aforementioned. O_O At the start of her story, Nina was 38 years old and her biggest problems centered around publishing her newest bit of writing and mothering her two young sons with her husband...and then Cancer rapidly derailed her life. When Nina was initially diagnosed with breast cancer her mother was fighting her own battle with an aggressive myeloma. At first, Nina's diagnosis seemed quite straightforward in comparison. Her doctor felt it was quite treatable with a mastectomy and chemo but right as her life seemed to stabilize a stabbing back pain (reminiscent of Paul Kalinithi) made itself known. This turned out to be the harbinger of Stage 4 cancer which unfortunately was not curable. To add insult to injury, her mother's cancer stopped responding to treatment and she opted to stop her treatment. Overwhelming and almost unbelievably melodramatic as this all sounds Nina chose to view each day through a positive lens. It is obvious to me that she was a special person with a whole lot of spirit. Sadly, she passed away before final publication of her book but her legacy still lives and breathes on each page of her memoir. I'm sorry we can't enjoy more writing from her in the future. 9/10 Show Less
LibraryThing member smallself
They’re kind like little prose poem essays, which would make sense because she was a poet. She also talks about Ralphie, (“permanence is but a word of degrees”) because she’s related to RWE.
It is not especially demanding book, especially since it's divided into so many essentially
I got it because I identified with someone who has an illness. I try not to *over*-identify in this way: gotta keep popping those Tylenol pills, every day! No, not like that. But I identify, not so much with gender or generation—ok, she wasn’t that much older than me, but whatever— but with someone who didn’t really voyage that far out before she had to turn around and go home.
It is not especially demanding book, especially since it's divided into so many essentially
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self-contained little episodes. This can be seen as a flaw in a book that’s about pain, although at the same time the trajectory of the story means that this pain cannot be denied. I got it because I identified with someone who has an illness. I try not to *over*-identify in this way: gotta keep popping those Tylenol pills, every day! No, not like that. But I identify, not so much with gender or generation—ok, she wasn’t that much older than me, but whatever— but with someone who didn’t really voyage that far out before she had to turn around and go home.
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LibraryThing member terran
This is not a book that I could race through, even though I loved so much about it. There is so much wit, wisdom, and depth in the memoir of Nina Riggs about her final year of living with metastatic breast cancer. I wanted it to go on and on, but reading it was difficult, knowing how it would end.
LibraryThing member reader1009
nonfiction / cancer memoir (posthumous publication) by poet and mother of two young boys (and apparently, descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson), diagnosed at age 37 with what would turn out to be a very aggressive form of breast cancer
short chapters with humor and light make this easy to read, sad
short chapters with humor and light make this easy to read, sad
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content makes it hard to forget. Show Less
LibraryThing member fmclellan
Brilliant and beautiful. Funny, charming, heartbreaking. Is it weird that I feel proud the author was from Greensboro?! Highly recommended.
LibraryThing member carolfoisset
Beautifully written and gut wrenching, sweet, sad, funny, hopeful, heartbreaking, so,so many emotions while reading this book. I know I will think of Nina from time to time in the years ahead - it's that kind of book- it stays with you.
Awards
NPR: Books We Love (2017)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2017)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2017
Physical description
336 p.; 5.5 inches
ISBN
1501169378 / 9781501169373