The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying – Nina Riggs

Nina Riggs wrote this memoir under incredibly challenging circumstances. At 37, she was diagnosed with cancer, which a year later became terminal. As she navigated her own mortality — leaving behind a husband and two younger sons — she also had to care for her mother, who was also dying of cancer.

It goes without saying this is a heavy read, and I wasn’t in the right head space for it.

You can’t give a book like this a negative review, because it’s going to hit you differently depending on where you are in life and what you’re dealing with. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been surrounded by a lot of grief, so I’m a little numb right now to another’s pain.

After reading Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air” in 2019, Riggs’ memoir was recommended to me, but “The Bright Hour” didn’t resonate with me in the same way as Kalanithi’s memoir, which found me at a time of immense change in my personal life.

All I can say is this felt a little scattershot. Riggs was clearly a talented and intellectual writer. Her love letter to the world included celebrations of her favorite philosopher, Montaigne, and her great-great grandfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as slice-of-moments of her family and experience during breast cancer treatment.

She used literature and philosophy to cope with what was happening to her, but sometimes it felt like I was listening to a graduate paper on classic literature and other times a memoir about her life. Neither one of them felt complete.

Part of this is due to Cassandra Campbell’s audiobook narration. This is the third performance by Campbell I’ve heard recently, and honestly, I hate her delivery. She comes across as pretentious and detached, so in turn I applied those traits to Riggs. Had I read this, I don’t think my assessment of her would’ve been the same. Campbell may be the first all-star narrator I actively seek to avoid.

This may be something I revisit, though, because of the last third when she discusses her preparation for death, while ensuring those around her know it’s okay to keep living. It was frank and deliberate and has the power to comfort others.

Rating (story): 3/5 stars

Rating (narration): 2/5 stars

Formats: Audiobook (library loan)

Dates read: September 11 – September 13, 2022

Multi-tasking: Okay. This might be better delivered as a read. I was distracted by Cassandra Campbell’s pretentious delivery.