June 2017

We all have a list of books that we have read and know we will reflect on long afterwards. For me, THE BRIGHT HOUR, a memoir by Nina Riggs, sits firmly on that list.

While she was 37 and still undergoing a first treatment round for her breast cancer, Nina learned that her cancer already had metastasized and her prognosis sharply dimmed. After reading a “Modern Love” column that Nina wrote for The New York Times on September 23, 2016 about looking for the perfect couch for her family, it was clear that there was a bigger story there to be told. The clock was ticking…loudly. Nina wrote this book between October 2016 and January 2017 (yes, in three months), and it was published last week. Sadly Nina passed away before the book released; she did get to see the cover and the bound manuscript, which she even edited. She leaves behind a beautiful book about how you live when you are dealt a bad hand.

For those who would shy away because it may be sad, embrace it for being honest, funny and brave. As she writes, you feel like you are beside her. She describes a meal that she and her husband had in Paris when she traveled there between treatments, and it sounded so wonderful that the night I read it, I was googling the restaurant’s menu, which is in French (and I can barely read Spanish after seven years of it in school), trying to figure out how to recreate the meal. There are so many quotable lines and sections. You will be marking the pages. And oh, good writing is in her genes; her great-great-great (following me here, right?) grandfather was Ralph Waldo Emerson. And if you are wondering, she did get a couch. A perfect one!

After reading, take a moment and send some thoughts of love to her husband and two young sons. What a gift that they will have this book to remember the bright light that Nina brought to this world.