I first came across Nina Riggs’ book, The Bright Hour, because of its comparison to another popular memoir, physician author Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air.
Riggs was a poet, and her writing style reflects this; short chapters with descriptive elements and a musicality to the sentences that leaves us wanting more. She is honest and funny. Diagnosed with breast cancer in her thirties, a life just hitting its stride with two young boys in tow.
In describing Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal, Riggs illuminates the heart of her own memoir “of living and dying.” She notes the attempt “to distill what matters most to each of us in life in order to navigate our way toward the edge of it in a meaningful and satisfying way.”
Riggs navigates the world of oncology and the process of dying with candor and a clear sense of self. When her oncologist discusses her case with colleagues she bristles at the standard name for the meeting of minds: “Tumor board: the term kills me every time I hear it. You’re just saying that to freak me out, I think. What is actually a group of doctors from different specialties discussing the specifics of your case together around a table sounds like a cancer court-martial or a torture tactic.”
She takes her young sons to her radiation oncology appointment in the hopes of getting them interested in the science behind the treatment. In the waiting room, she becomes acutely aware of how, taken as a group, her fellow cancer “militia” appear: “Suddenly I am aware of so many wheelchairs. So many unsteady steppers. So many pale faces and thin wisps of hair and ghostly bodies slumped in chairs. Angry, papery skin. Half-healed wounds. Growths and disfigurements straight out of the Brothers Grimm. So many heads held up by hands.” Have you ever been entrenched in a world of medicine or illness and then suddenly seen it from an outsider’s perspective?
Riggs ushers the reader into her new world as breast cancer patient. In a particularly striking scene following her mastectomy, she goes to pick out a breast form from the local expert, Alethia. “‘Welcome!’ She says. ‘Let’s find you a breast!’ She tells me that according to my insurance, I get to pick out six bras and a breast form…. The one she picks comes in a fancy square box with gold embossed writing: Nearly Me.” As Riggs’ contemporary, I could see the grave levity in the situation; Riggs is a master at sharing her experience, heartache and humor alike.
In the end, this is a memoir of a young woman who is dying. She acknowledges this and realizes that, near the end, there is a metamorphosis of light: “The term ‘bright spot’ takes on a whole new meaning, more like the opposite of silver lining: danger, bone pain, progression. More radiation. More pain medicine. More tests. Strange topsy-turvy cancer stuff: With scans, you long for a darkened screen…. Not one lit room to be found… not one single birthday candle awaiting its wish. No sign of life, no sign of anything about to begin.”
Writing Prompt: If you’ve read Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air or Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, how does their approach to writing about dying compare with The Bright Hour? Riggs comments on a kinship with the “Feeling Pretty Poorlies” she meets during her radiation treatment but because of HIPPA privacy regulations, never knows if they finished treatment or if it was “something else” that caused them to disappear. Did you ever participate in a treatment where you saw the same people regularly? Did you wonder about them after that time ended? Think about the privacy rules set in place to protect patients’ privacy. What are the benefits? Do you see any drawbacks? Write for 10 minutes.