The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying Book Club Guide1 Quotes + General Plot Points “There are so many things that are worse than death: old grudges, a lack of selfawareness, severe constipation, no sense of humor, the grimace on your husband’s face as he empties your surgical drain into the measuring cup.” Pg 1 At age 37, Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer: “It becomes a chant, a rallying cry. One small spot is fixable. One small spot is a year of your life. No one dies from one small spot.” Pg 8 “Which makes my thinking go like this: When you fall in love with your kids, you fall in love forever.” Pg 30 “All the warfare jargon around cancer the battling, the surviving, the winning/losing, the kicking its ass hasn’t been ringing true for me. But I’m good with not letting it crack me.” Pg 33 “Cancer removes whatever weird barriers we sometimes have with others. A mastectomy of bullshit, my mother suggests. All the ohyeseverythingisgreat stuff eventually gets carted off in a bag of medical waste.” Pg 37 Nina’s relative was Ralph Waldo Emerson. She quotes one of her favorite essays, Circles: “The universe is fluid and volatile.” She compares this passage to her experience with cancer: “I try to hold both of these ideas like two little magnets in my hand: his and mine. One small spot and the universe is fluid and volatile. They push against each other: “one small spot” requires the constant energy to keep things contained. The “universe is fluid and volatile” is scary but allows for the idea that there are things that cannot be contained.” Pg 45 Nina writes out her last will: “It says: I was here right here look at this ink, the curl of the N and now I am gone, and I leave these things to you: my spouse, JOHN A. DUBERSTEIN, because you have survived me.” Pg 55 At sixteen weeks pregnant, Nina has her first ultrasound: “But they’re taking too many pictures. Too many measurements. His feet. His legs. His brain. His heart. His feet again. No one is talking at all, until suddenly someone says, “Well, I guess by now you know something is not quite right.” … Talipes equinovarus, they tell us after the scan club foot.” Pg 68
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The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying Nina Riggs Published by Simon and
Schuster January 16th 2018 336 Pages