Synopses & Reviews
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Stunning…heartrending…this year’s When Breath Becomes Air." — Nora Krug, The Washington Post
"Beautiful and haunting." — Matt McCarthy, MD, USA TODAY
"Deeply affecting…simultaneously heartbreaking and funny." — People (Book of the Week)
"Vivid, immediate." — Laura Collins-Hughes, The Boston Globe
Starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal
Most Anticipated Summer Reading Selection by The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, The Seattle Times, Vulture, InStyle, Bookpage, Bookriot, Real Simple, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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.
Review
"Like the bestselling When Breath Becomes Air, the work she left behind is a beautiful testament to the quiet magic of everyday life and making the most of the time we are given, whether it’s spent taking last-minute trips to Paris, wallpapering the mudroom, or reveling in a newly purchased couch. 'These are the things we all say at the end of book club now: I love you,' she writes. 'Of course we do. Why haven’t we been saying that all along?'" New York Post (This Week’s Must-Read Books)
Review
"A vivid, immediate dispatch from the front lines of mortality and a record of a life by someone who wasn't done living yet. But there is nothing maudlin about it...her warm portraits of each of [the members of her closest circle] are a large part of the book's emotional power. So is something we don't notice fully until it's gone: the strength and clarity of Riggs's voice, which never faded on the page, and which we won't get to hear again." Boston Globe
Review
"I think every writer is just trying to find the words to say essentially: This is what life feels like. And in this book, Nina Riggs did that — she found the words. And they’re beautiful, and heartbreaking, and transcendent." Cristina Henriquez, critically acclaimed author of The Book of Unknown Americans
Review
"You can read a multitude books about how to die, but Riggs, a dying woman, will show you how to live." New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)
Review
"The Bright Hour is a stunning work, a heart-rending meditation on life — not just how to appreciate it while you’re living it, but how to embrace its end, too. It is this year’s When Breath Becomes Air." Nora Krug, Washington Post
Review
"Beautiful and haunting...a thoughtful and heartbreaking exploration of what makes life meaningful in a person's remaining days...Buried within this agonizing tale are moments of levity — I laughed out loud many, many times — and flashes of poetry...This book provides a stunning look at that experience and has forever changed my understanding of the illness narrative. It’s a book every doctor and patient should read…It's hard not to compare The Bright Hour to When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi's best-selling memoir about his battle with lung cancer. Both were in their late 30s when they discovered they were dying, and both write spare prose with a poignancy that is uncommon. However, Riggs' book is markedly different in tone and content. It's more humorous and less philosophical — but equally moving." Matt McCarthy, MD, USA Today (4/4 stars)
Review
"This book is carefully, thoughtfully, and beautifully written. I think it should be required reading for the entire human race. Nina Riggs is my hero and after you read this she will be your hero, too." Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of The Identicals
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Nina Riggs received her MFA in poetry in 2004 and published a book of poems, Lucky, Lucky, in 2009. She wrote about life with metastatic breast cancer on her blog, Suspicious Country; her recent work has appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times. She lived with her husband and sons and dogs in Greensboro, North Carolina. She is the author of The Bright Hour.