JULY 2017 - AudioFile
THE BRIGHT HOUR is a thing of beauty. Nina Riggs is honest and profoundly human as she comes to terms with life with terminal cancer and death. Narrator Cassandra Campbell is just perfect. She matches Riggs’s emotions at every stage, and her lovely smooth voice has a bittersweet quality. The memoir manages to be both entertaining and heartbreaking as Riggs considers her family medical history (about the worst lottery ticket ever), loses her mother to multiple myeloma, reminisces about meeting her husband in a graveyard, and endures brutal treatments that bring no cure. She is funny, too—she can’t seem to decide which couch to buy, her widowed father starts riding a motorcycle, and she plans post-death emails to her sons if they ever view pornography on the internet. The short afterword from Riggs’s husband is narrated by Kirby Heyborne. It feels like losing a beautiful friend when it’s over. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Judith Newman
Knowing Nina Riggs died shortly after writing The Bright Hour…makes this moving and often very funny memoir almost unbearable to read. But that's because it is not one bromide after the other. It is true, and it might crush you…You can read a multitude of books about how to die, but Riggs, a dying woman, will show you how to live.
Publishers Weekly
★ 04/24/2017
Riggs, who lives in Greensboro, N.C., was 38 when she was diagnosed with incurable metastatic breast cancer. The diagnosis comes at the onset of this moving and insightful memoir. Married to a lawyer, and the mother of two young sons, Riggs was initially told that the cancer was “one small spot,” but as the memoir progresses (the sections are ominously yet cleverly named after the four “stages” of cancer), the small spot grows and spreads to her spine. She undergoes a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, spinal surgery, and joins a clinical trial. During the same period, Riggs’s wisecracking and beloved mother, who had been fighting multiple myeloma for eight years, dies. Despite the profound sadness of her situation, Riggs writes with humor; the memoir is rife with witty one-liners and musings on the joys and challenges of mothering and observations on the importance of loving relationships. The great-great-great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Riggs frequently quotes her legendary relative and uses his writings as a guide, as well as the writings of the philosopher Montaigne, whose advice to “live with an awareness of death in the room” she takes seriously. In this tender memoir Riggs displays a keen awareness of and reverence for all the moments of life—both the light, and the dark, “the cruel, and the beautiful.” (May)
From the Publisher
PRAISE FOR THE BRIGHT HOUR BY NINA RIGGS
“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
"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
"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)
"Poet Nina Riggs was only 37, the mother of two young sons, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Within a year she had lost her mother to multiple myeloma—and learned her own cancer was terminal as well. Riggs died last February, leaving behind this deeply affecting memoir, a simultaneously heartbreaking and funny account of living with loss and the specter of death. As she lyrically, unflinchingly details her reality, she finds beauty and truth that comfort even amid the crushing sadness."
—People (Book of the Week)
"Profound and poignant...superb...I put down The Bright Hour a slightly different, and better, person - unbearably sad and also feeling, as Riggs did, 'the hug of the world.'"
—Kelly Corrigan, O Magazine
“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)
“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
“The Bright Hour is filled with life. We are so lucky that in the last months of her life Nina wrote The Bright Hour as a gift—to her family, to her husband, to her children, and also as a gift to us.”
—Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of Faithful and The Rules of Magic
“Her memoir is powerful and gripping and also, brilliantly, laugh-out-loud funny—the perfect reminder that every day here is a gift, and that every day is an opportunity to leave an indelible mark on those who you must leave behind.”
—goop
"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
“The antithesis of grim: an irreverent and poignant Baedeker through the country of illness.”
—Wall Street Journal
“This gorgeous chronicle of the last year of her life—brimming with seemingly mundane details about parenting, buying a couch, getting a puppy—is a gentle reminder to cherish each day.”
—Entertainment Weekly (Best New Books)
“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)
"Fans of Paul Kalanithi's heart-wrenching memoir will enjoy this poignant story about how a grown woman—who's also a direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson—spends her last days after being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer."
—InStyle.com
"A luminous, heartbreaking symphony of wit, wisdom, pain, parenting, and perseverance against insurmountable odds."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Moving and insightful...Riggs writes with humor; the memoir is rife with witty one-liners and musings on the joys and challenges of mothering and observations on the importance of loving relationships...In this tender memoir Riggs displays a keen awareness of and reverence for all the moments of life—both the light, and the dark, 'the cruel, and the beautiful.'”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Riggs reminds us that we are all in this world until we leave it; the gallows humor surrounding her mother's funeral will make readers howl guiltily but appreciatively. Whether confronting disease or not, everyone should read this beautifully crafted book as it imbues life and loved ones with a particularly transcendent glow."
—Library Journal (starred review)
"Author Nina Riggs was 37, the mother of two young sons, and married to her best friend when she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. This is the story of how she faced the unthinkable with humanity and most of all with love."
—Glamour Magazine
“Inspired by the unforgettable New York Times Modern Love column, this memoir by a young mother with terminal cancer is touching and wickedly funny.”
—Glamour Magazine (The Six Juiciest Summer Reads)
“Through this warmhearted memoir, Riggs writes her way to accepting her own death and the uncertainty that follows it. The Bright Hour is an introspective, well-considered tribute to life. As Riggs’ famed ancestor Emerson writes, 'That is morning; to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body and to become as large as the World.'"
—Bookpage
“In this memoir, published posthumously, Nina Riggs asks: How do you make life meaningful when you know your time is limited? With humor and honesty, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying chronicles Riggs’s diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer and the moments shared with her school-age sons and her husband before her death at age 39.”
—Real Simple (Five Books That Won’t Disappoint)
"A beautiful gift...A heartrending reminder of life’s worthiness from the descendent of Ralph Waldo Emerson, this is a beautiful time-capsule of Riggs’ experiences."
—Read it Forward (Best of May Selection)
"Poignant...For anyone looking for wise words on the subject of cancer—this is your book, but it also contains so much more. Riggs was the great-great-great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and there is a running theme throughout the book about the huge importance of art and the humanity it can impart."
—Bookish (Must Read Nonfiction for Summer Selection)
"It’s a tearjerker, but if you enjoyed When Breath Becomes Air, this book will hit the same emotional spots."
—Bitch Magazine
“Memoirs of serious illness are haunted by the twin specters of death and self-help; whether ending in remission or posthumous sainthood, they suffer from the soft bigotry of the critic-proof. Riggs, who died at 39, a month after finishing this book, emulated entirely different writers, from Cheryl Strayed to essayists like Michel de Montaigne and her ancestor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her story was driven not just by her dark pursuer, breast cancer, but also by lives lived and books read. Read it for its insights, not its subject.”
—Vulture
"With The Bright Hour, Riggs leaves behind a literary legacy that captures both her incredible talent and her unwavering love for her family...Her lyrical, honest prose immerses the reader in her world — you feel the fear, the despair, the joy...Riggs perfectly captures the strange, sometimes otherworldly feeling experience of cancer treatment...But though one might expect a tome of sadness and despair from a writer with only months left to live, Riggs fills her memoir with vivid, messy, beautiful life. The book illustrates how Riggs’ sense of humor never falters...Riggs seamlessly integrates both Emerson’s and Montaigne’s thoughts on life, death and health, adding a richness to her own experience."
—Greensboro News & Record
"Wry and tender."
—Atlanta Journal Constitution
"Gorgeous and brave, Nina Riggs’s memoir explodes with life and insight even amid ruin – with lines so poetic they knocked the wind out of me. It’s heartbreaking, funny, clear-eyed, and entirely devoid of cliché. This book is her hard-won treasure, and ours.”
—Lucy Kalanithi
“An amazing book.”
—Katie Couric, OZY
"How a woman can have this much emotional clarity and narrative power while fighting for her life should astonish every last one of us. Magical. Unforgettable."
—Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author of The Middle Place and Glitter and Glue
“Nina Riggs could have written a memoir about dying. Instead, she has given us a book exploding with life. Every page of The Bright Hour (“bright” the operative word here) is filled with the mysterious, messy, funny, heartbreaking stuff that only happens in the most loving of families. Clearly, hers is one.
“Writing with frank and exquisite honesty and a striking absence of sentimentality or self-pity in the final days of a terminal struggle, she explores everything from her children’s choice of Halloween costumes and her own, of a new sofa, to the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Montaigne. Though no doubt challenged by constant physical depletion and grief—a fact of her illness she chooses not to dwell on—Riggs emerges as a character whose ultimate victory will not take the form of beating cancer, but of refusing to allow cancer to destroy her life-embracing spirit. As she allows us into her world of wig shopping and heart to heart conversations with her boys, it becomes impossible not to love this woman (also her quirky, tenderly rendered sons, and her quietly suffering husband, whose future remarriage she allows herself to envision).
“The tragedy of Riggs’s illness and impending death hangs over every page, but in the end, this is a book not about crushing loss but about the richness of love and its power to uplift and sustain us. What a gift she has given to her family, and to any reader of this beautiful book.”
—Joyce Maynard, New York Times bestselling author of Under the Influence, At Home in the World, and Labor Day
"Nina Riggs writes gorgeously and with astonishing clarity about her own terminal illness, about losing her mother, about her marriage and her children, about books that have guided her, and also about the often comical challenges of daily life as a busy parent. Riggs never shies away from describing the terrible sadness and messiness of her own dying, but also manages to suffuse this book with a miraculous blend of light and joy. This is an emotional journey told with raw honesty and also a sly sense of humor.
"The Bright Hour is an instant classic that deserves to be read by everyone who loved When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and Being Mortal by Atul Guwande. Like those, here is a book about dying that has powerful lessons for everyone about how to live."
—Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Your Life Bookclub and Books For Living
“Once I started this book, I couldn’t stop reading. Profound, absorbing, and often even funny, Nina Riggs’s memoir of living and dying is a meditation on life, family, and how to cram every day of our existence with what we love—no matter how much time we have left. Brilliant and illuminating.”
—Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before
Library Journal
★ 04/01/2017
Poet Riggs (Lucky, Lucky) has lived under the shade of both a celebrated and a disheartening family tree. The great-great-great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, "one small spot," in her late 30s, and she can name a raft of relatives suffering from the same disease, among them her paternal grandfather. Other family cancers included her mother's multiple myeloma. This memoir travels the stages of Riggs's illness, along with the author; her husband, John; and their two boys, Freddy and Benny, as she relates past experiences and current anxieties—her cancer metastasizes and is declared incurable. Riggs quotes RWE when it fits (and it always seems to), as well as one of his subjects, philosopher Michel de Montaigne. She reminds us that we are all in this world until we leave it; the gallows humor surrounding her mother's funeral will make readers howl guiltily but appreciatively. VERDICT Whether confronting disease or not, everyone should read this beautifully crafted book as it imbues life and loved ones with a particularly transcendent glow. [Nina Riggs died on February 26, 2017.]—Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal
JULY 2017 - AudioFile
THE BRIGHT HOUR is a thing of beauty. Nina Riggs is honest and profoundly human as she comes to terms with life with terminal cancer and death. Narrator Cassandra Campbell is just perfect. She matches Riggs’s emotions at every stage, and her lovely smooth voice has a bittersweet quality. The memoir manages to be both entertaining and heartbreaking as Riggs considers her family medical history (about the worst lottery ticket ever), loses her mother to multiple myeloma, reminisces about meeting her husband in a graveyard, and endures brutal treatments that bring no cure. She is funny, too—she can’t seem to decide which couch to buy, her widowed father starts riding a motorcycle, and she plans post-death emails to her sons if they ever view pornography on the internet. The short afterword from Riggs’s husband is narrated by Kirby Heyborne. It feels like losing a beautiful friend when it’s over. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2017-04-10
A loving mother of two meditates on the nature of life and death.When poet Riggs' (Lucky, Lucky, 2009) diagnosis of breast cancer suddenly became terminal at age 38, her view of all living things narrowed to her two sons, her strong yet fearful husband, John, and the memory of her mother, who died just months before. The author entered the fray with her doctor's grim announcement of "one small spot" on her breast and began years of treatment for a cancerous lesion that seemed initially manageable, spread, and eventually claimed her life just this year. As breast cancer permeates her family history—even her paternal grandfather underwent a radical mastectomy in the 1970s—Riggs wasn't completely shocked by her diagnosis, but it took time for the reality of illness to sink in, as well as the development that one of her young sons was diabetic. The author generously shares memories of her romance with John, their life together in Paris, and familial anecdotes that oscillate between tender and bittersweet. The author writes with a seamless flow and an honest, heartfelt tone; the narrative often glides into passages of gorgeous, rhythmic prose leaving no doubt about Riggs' immense talent for poetic language. She also retains a dry, witty sense of humor throughout despite the sadness of enduring chemotherapy and its side effects, navigating advanced medical and legal directives, a mastectomy, and an incremental decline in her health. She was buoyed, however, by starting a personal cancer chronicle blog called Suspicious Country and by the words of Michel de Montaigne and Annie Dillard. Though the aggressive cancer hijacked her physically and psychologically, Riggs' indefatigable spirit is the true heroine in this story of life and loss; even in her darkest moments, she writes, "the beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on." A luminous, heartbreaking symphony of wit, wisdom, pain, parenting, and perseverance against insurmountable odds.
