Ann Packer: "Some Bright Nowhere" | Oprah's Book Club

BUY THE BOOK! ⁠https://amzn.to/4z7qZP9⁠ https://amzn.to/4z7qZP9 To find all of the Oprah’s Book Club selections and 30 of Oprah’s most memorable reads, visit: ⁠http://www.amazon.com/obc⁠ http://www.amazon.com/obc In this episode of Oprah’s Book Club: Presented by Starbucks, Oprah and Ann Packer discuss Some Bright Nowhere, Ann’s poignant new novel and Oprah’s 120th Book Club selection. This book explores what happens when a wife's dying request shatters everything her husband believed about their 35 years together. Ann’s evocative and beautifully written novel inspired a thought-provoking conversation among readers at a Starbucks coffeehouse in New York City. As our audience discussed the inherent challenges and life-changing insights that come with the privilege and responsibility of caregiving, they were warmed by a Starbucks holiday classic: the Peppermint Mocha. 00:00:00 - Welcome Ann Packer, author of ‘Some Bright Nowhere’ 00:02:40 - Thando shares her feelings about the main characters 00:04:50 - How Ann created the story 00:06:50 - Ann knew the ending before she started 00:07:38 - Recurring theme in Ann’s books 00:10:35 - Ann takes on hard questions 00:14:50 - How Ann wrote from the male perspective 00:17:07 - Support for male caregivers 00:25:30 - Male and female caregiving differences 00:30:38 - The difficulty of speaking your truth 00:31:54 - The power of a dying wish 00:33:48 - What cancer takes away from people 00:39:29 - What can be learned from loss 00:40:32 - Ann wants to normalize talking about death 00:42:50 - How it feels to hit send on your finished book SUPPORT THE SHOW Learn more about Jack’s Caregiver Coalition - a national non-profit that ensures no man should care alone. Jack’s is a center for empowerment, support, and community for men who are caregivers. https://www.jackscaregiverco.org/ Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@oprah?lang=en Listen to the full podcast: Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 #oprahsbookclub

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Anne is here. How wonderful. Good to see you. You're wearing one of my favorite colors, purple.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  It did not occur to me.

• 0:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you ever make yourself cry with your own writing?

• 0:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Because I know a lot of people did.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Embarrassingly, when I read it afterwards sometimes.

• 0:54Oprah Winfrey?

  You do, tear up.

• 0:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, everybody. I'm so happy to welcome you to Oprah's Book Club, presented by Starbucks. We're in an empire state of mind here at a Starbucks Cafe in the heart of New York City. And the holidays are here. And that means this month's drink pairing is a Starbucks classic, the peppermint mocha with flavors of chocolate and peppermint. It's a merry, merry, merry, merry minty way to warm up this season along with a great book. And I have just the one for you right here. My 120th Book Club selection is Some Bright Nowhere by Anne Packer, the beloved Anne Packer. It's a novel that explores what happens when a wife's dying request

• 1:43Oprah Winfrey?

  shatters everything her husband believed about their 35 years together. Everyone in our audience has read the book, and I hear it brought up some strong feelings for many of you. Diane, where are you?

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Right here.

• 1:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Diane, some strong feelings? Let's hear it.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Yes, actually, I've been married 40 years. And I thought it was really interesting in the book how the spouses could understand each other without necessarily speaking. And I thought that was beautiful. But at the same time, then, for Claire to exclude her husband at her most intense time of life.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  I thought was almost cruel. And it really, it hurt me for Elliot. So a lot of strong feelings. Beautiful book. Thank you.

• 2:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Strong feelings, beautiful book. Edward, where are you?

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  Hi. So I lost my grandmother in 2016, nine years ago, to a battle with Alzheimer's. And what I found interesting was that death in the book is rather a process than like just one limited moment in life. And through the process, we learned that connection is important, that we all want to be seen, and that love is important. And at the end of it all, that's what matters. So beautiful way of displaying that. Thank you.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 3:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, Tondo Delomo is one of my daughter girls, a graduate of my school, who is a member of my family. She graduated from my school in South Africa. I met her when she was 11, going on 12. Her big dream was to come to America and become an actress, and that's what she's pursuing here now. And she reads every one of my book club picks. I didn't make her do it. She started doing it on her own. And so we want to know what's your take.

• 3:35Speaker 05

  Well, first of all, every time I thought I had a problem with Elliot and how passive aggressive he can be, I would realize my real problem is with Claire. And how she intellectualizes her way into strong-arming him every single time. Emotional, intellectual abilities, and she's just whipping him up into all sorts of shapes. So yes, really great book. Not, not a fan of Claire.

• 4:04Oprah Winfrey?

  That's exactly, I didn't tell you this, but when I, when I called Anne to tell her, I was actually at the gym and I had a, the call was set for like 2 o'clock and I wasn't going to make it home, so I just called you from the gym. And I said to her, I'm choosing this book, even though I'm very annoyed with Claire, and was annoyed with Claire through half of the book. I was totally annoyed by her and her lack of empathy for Elliot through this whole process. But in spite of that, I'm choosing it as an O'Keehan's Book Club selection.

• 4:36Speaker 06

  Oh, my God, you're kidding me.

• 4:38Oprah Winfrey?

  So I want you all to know, just to set up the plot a little bit. Claire is nearing the end of her life after an eight-year struggle with breast cancer. Her husband Elliot, who retired early to be Claire's full-time caregiver. Now, he's retired and he's there to take care of her. Then he's blindsided when Claire asks him to move out. So her two best women friends can move in and take over as caregivers for her last weeks on earth. It's a wow moment that sets the rest of the story in motion. Welcome, the beloved Anne Packer. So great to have you here.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Thank you, sir.

• 5:15Oprah Winfrey?

  As I told you when I first spoke, I was so annoyed by her, three-quarters of the book. What made you come up with this story?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  So it was actually a scenario I heard described about people in real life. I heard there was this woman. She had been ill for a long time and was reaching the end stages of that illness. And her husband was deemed unsuitable, incapable of seeing her through the final weeks and months. So her two closest friends moved in and did the job themselves. And I was, it was, there was not a lot of detail in the way that I was told the story. It was just sort of, this happened. And I thought, wow, it just blew my mind that.

• 6:01Oprah Winfrey?

  That a woman could do that.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  That any, yeah, that you could just expel your spouse because they weren't exactly right for the job, whatever that was going to be. And at first, I was kind of taken with the notion of what that sort of womanly cocoon of care and love would feel like. And that stayed with me for a long time. But at the same time, I was. I kept thinking back to The Man. Like, what was his experience of that going to be?

• 6:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I read that your bestseller, The Die from Clausen's Peer, took 10 years to write, and that you wrote the first draft of this one in four months. Is that true?

• 6:47Speaker 02

  That is true. And I could say I've just gotten a lot better at my job. But I think the reason the first book took so long is that I was raising kids and also hadn't had the experience of publishing a lot of books and learning to feel confident and to know when they were ready to go. And now, that was almost 20 years ago. I feel a lot more like I know what I want to do when I write a novel. At the same time, four months for a first draft is pretty much unheard of for me.

• 7:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Is unheard of for a lot of people.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  I knew I wanted it to be really short. I knew how it had to end.

• 7:26Oprah Winfrey?

  So you knew the ending before you started?

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Well, I knew that it was going to have to end with the end of her life in some way. So I was always writing toward that moment. I didn't know at all exactly how they were going to get there. But I knew that early in the book, she was going to ask him to leave so that her friends could take care of her. And I just, I don't know, I'd been struggling with a different book for a while. And when I started writing this one, it felt really good. And I just worked hours and hours and hours every day. And I think that's how the speed happened.

• 8:09Oprah Winfrey?

  I read somewhere that you believe that the theme that runs through all your work is that space between what other people want or expect of us versus what we actually want for ourselves. So why are you interested in that space in between? I think that's so fascinating, actually.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  I guess, I guess I would say the reason is that... For me, that's almost always what conflict is going to be about, interpersonal conflict. There's always a question of, well, if there's conflict, it's because someone has disappointed somebody.

• 8:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  And why have they done that?

• 8:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, they were served- It's because the person had another expectation.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they wanted to-

• 8:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Let me think about that for a moment.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:00Oprah Winfrey?

  You're right. Okay, yeah, it's true, right? It is, yeah. Yeah.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  And to live your truth, whatever that might mean, sometimes it's great for everyone else and sometimes it's not. And then you have to make a choice.

• 9:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, that's so interesting that you say that, because I tell people all the time, my girls and other people, sometimes they call me for counseling, that the reason you were so upset is because of your expectation. The other person is just doing what they're doing, and you had another expectation for it that didn't have anything to do with who they were or what they wanted. And so your expectations did not align. So I think, would you think about this for a moment, y'all? That your disappointments in life with other people is because you expected one thing and they did another.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  So trouble in life is expectations colliding?

• 9:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, expectations colliding. Why did you decide? I had heard that in the beginning, you were writing from Claire's point of view, and then you decided to flip it to Elliot's point of view. Why?

• 9:59Speaker 02

  So at the beginning, I had an idea of a more expansive novel. And what I thought I would do was start in Claire's point of view, move to one friend's point of view, move on to the second friend's point of view, and finally, get to the husband's point of view. And when I was working on that, they had different names. I had to, they were different characters. So I always have to really find the right name for my characters. So at that point, it was Tom and Jane. And I wrote Jane's point of view for 10 pages. I switched to her friends. And I just ran out of interest in it. It didn't compel me the way I need material to compel me in order to be able to keep going. And I don't know why it didn't compel me.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  I think in retrospect, I wrote another novel about women's friendship. And so in some way, the terrain felt maybe a little too familiar. But then I started thinking about the husband and- How that would be the hardest point of view to write. And as soon as I realized that, I was like, OK, that's what I have to do.

• 11:04Oprah Winfrey?

  So were you that kind of person as a kid? You want to take on the hardest question?

• 11:10Speaker 02

  I would probably say that I think as a kid, I would hear the hardest question and then try to break it down, try to deconstruct the question.

• 11:21Oprah Winfrey?

  That's so interesting.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  I still do that, like just now.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Which I didn't plan.

• 11:29Oprah Winfrey?

  We'll be right back with a young widower who says Ann Packer's new book brought him to his knees.

• 11:36Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. For your awards consideration, HBO Max presents Rooster. Starring Steve Carell, this new comedy series focuses on the complicated relationship between a successful author and his daughter. Don't miss the series IGN called Hilarious and Brilliant. Rooster is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now.

• 11:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. We're speaking with novelist Ann Packer about her beautiful new book, Some Right Nowhere, my 120th Oprah Book Club pick. We wanted to hear from people who've gone through a similar experience as Elliot. And we have Kyle here in our audience. Kyle, where are you?

• 12:14Speaker 08

  I'm right here.

• 12:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi.

• 12:16Speaker 08

  Hi, everyone. I'm Kyle Woody. And my story is essentially Elliot, only I was younger. In 2011, my wife, Sarah, was 34. I was 33. Our two sons were four and one.

• 12:33Speaker 08

  And Sarah was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.

• 12:38Speaker 08

  We expected she had two years of diagnosis. She had almost nine. For me, reading Elliot's story, it made me feel like I'd stepped into a time machine.

• 12:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Was it triggering for you too?

• 12:53Speaker 08

  Absolutely.

• 12:54Oprah Winfrey?

  I would think that this would be triggering if you've lived it.

• 12:57Speaker 08

  It was, you know, how scared he was.

• 13:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 08

  How isolated, how.

• 13:10Speaker 08

  Il-equipped, insecure. And how throughout it, there was this unspoken pressure that I felt and I read in your work with Elliot, to project the opposite of all those things.

• 13:30Speaker 08

  And I also understood how Elliot felt when Claire asked him to leave, because Sarah asked me for a divorce in 2016.

• 13:40Oprah Winfrey?

  While you were taking care of her?

• 13:41Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 13:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my gosh. Wow.

• 13:44Speaker 08

  And we remained close.

• 13:48Oprah Winfrey?

  How?

• 13:48Speaker 08

  After... It was very difficult. It was a very difficult time. And that wasn't, that closeness wasn't immediate. You know, I remember she dumped me on a Friday before Father's Day. But we remained close and I actually had opportunities to care for her. After the divorce, when her boyfriend Doug needed a break.

• 14:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait just a minute here. So did she have the boyfriend before you were taking care of her?

• 14:25Speaker 08

  No.

• 14:27Oprah Winfrey?

  So she was diagnosed. You started to take care of her as her husband?

• 14:32Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 14:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And you had been her husband for how long? How long had you all been married?

• 14:37Speaker 08

  For about six years.

• 14:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. And then she's diagnosed. Then you become the caregiver.

• 14:42Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 14:43Oprah Winfrey?

  And five years into the caregiving, she says, "I don't, I don't want to be with you anymore."

• 14:48Speaker 08

  Correct.

• 14:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 14:50Speaker 08

  You know, when you're in your final days or your final season of life, things are different. You know, your decision making is different. And I'm really, maybe the thing I'm most proud of is that through that experience of caring for her, Doug and I became very close. And to this day, we're raising Sarah's boys together in a way that I think Sarah would be very proud of.

• 15:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 15:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow, that is a story. So I was saying you would be very triggered in the book Some Bright Nowhere. When Claire asks him to leave, was that like a gut punch for you too?

• 15:36Speaker 08

  I got through like the first two chapters and it just brought me to my knees because, you know, that was my question for you, Anne, is how in the world did you have such a nuanced and accurate portrayal of what it's like to be a guy in that role?

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, I'm so sorry for what you went through and amazed by your story, especially that you and Doug are caring for the children and raising them together. That's incredible. How it's- That's part two of this novel.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Hey. Come on. We could collaborate. It's what you do when you create a character and for me, writing a man is not harder than writing a woman.

• 16:33Speaker 08

  It is or is not?

• 16:34Speaker 02

  It is not.

• 16:35Speaker 08

  It's not?

• 16:35Speaker 02

  It is not because in both cases, you're making an empathic leap into someone else's experience and I think, you know, I am in my 60s. I've seen friends go through cancer and not survive and I've seen the effect on their families and I've felt the effect on me, you know, what it actually does to a friend, a small community. So the sort of the feeling of being in that-

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Challenge and heartbreak was familiar to me. And in terms of creating Elliot, you know, I said I abandoned the other attempt, the one that had the different points of view in it. And the trick for me is to get the voice. And I started writing it and I found the voice very quickly. I felt like I could write. I mean, it's a third person. It's told, you know, as he, not I. But I felt like I could write from his point of view very readily. And I think that just kind of guided me into rounding him out

• 17:56Speaker 02

  and figuring out, you know, some of the details.

• 18:00Oprah Winfrey?

  I read, Kyle, that your experience showed you that male caregivers need a lot more support. Is that, is that true?

• 18:09Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 18:11Oprah Winfrey?

  10 years ago, Kyle and two other men, who were also taking care of their wives, who were struggling with cancer, co-founded a national nonprofit called Jack's Caregiver Coalition. Their inspiration was a family friend named Jack, who told them to serve the caregiver. It's a lonely job and they are always forgotten. The group provides a much-needed support system that has helped countless men cope and navigate the feelings of isolation caregivers so often experience. I encourage you to seek their help if you need it. You can find them at jackscaregiverco.org. The URL is there on your screen.

• 18:55Oprah Winfrey?

  I just finished a podcast with Emma Willis, who is Bruce Willis's wife. And she's written a book called The Unexpected Journey about what it's like to be a caregiver. And she doesn't use the word caregiver. She says it's really care partner, because you're there partnering with the person. That caregivers can be from the outside, but somebody who's in the home with the person all the time is a care partner. So you were a great care partner who was asked to, to leave through divorce. And I think that what you're saying is what she says in the book, that care partners need to take care of themselves first.

• 19:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Because most people just give and give and give until they're depleted and there's nothing there. Did you find that for yourself?

• 19:44Speaker 09

  Yes, absolutely. The focus on the other, the person you're caring for is absolute for folks in this role.

• 19:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. I'd like to ask other men in this audience, you know, if you were Elliot, do you think he'd agree to move out? Yes, no?

• 20:03Speaker 10

  Oh, no.

• 20:03Oprah Winfrey?

  You would not?

• 20:05Speaker 10

  I wouldn't give up my home. If we've created that together, I would still give her a wish, but I would probably go into another space in the house. One thing that I really thought about Elliot's journey was the fact that he kind of just wilted away in what he was giving. Yes, he was trying to figure out how he could give her a wish, but at the same time, when he goes with his friends and he tries to reminisce, it just wasn't working for me. So I just couldn't really see, like, why would he give up the place that he grew with his partner? Even if it is her final wish, I just wouldn't do that.

• 20:46Oprah Winfrey?

  You don't see yourself doing that?

• 20:48Speaker 10

  Yeah, I would be selfish in that way, as Claire is selfish with her wish.

• 20:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, okay. Yes, sir.

• 20:55Speaker 09

  I think I would honor the person's wish, but I would be very, very upset.

• 20:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Speaker 09

  So I think it's just the fact that she has cancer and that she knows she's gonna die, they know she's gonna die. It's like a double whammy.

• 21:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Double whammy. So you would honor it, you would leave, but you would be pissed at it?

• 21:17Speaker 09

  I think I would definitely fall into the passive-aggressive zone. As much as I would love to have a heroic, clear, clean breakthrough.

• 21:28Speaker 09

  I kind of see what happened, but I think that it just shed light on the fact that they had an emptiness in their relationship that almost upstaged the cancer. And it took that huge life event to kind of reveal what was going on. So in the long run for Elliot, it might be a blessing, but it was still hard.

• 21:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Was it? That's what I was gonna ask Anne. What was, does Anne, does Claire believe that her friends can give her something, obviously, during these final days, that Elliot can't or won't be able to?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  She does, and it stems from an experience she had as a caregiver.

• 22:08Oprah Winfrey?

  A caregiver.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Person for someone else. A friend she met in a cancer support group got to the end of her illness about a year earlier.

• 22:18Oprah Winfrey?

  I thought she was fantasizing about that. I thought she was making that a lot more fantastical than it really was. Because from her point of view, it was one thing, but who knows what the woman who was actually experiencing the cancer was going through? Maybe it wasn't, woo, all kumbaya, everybody, you know? Maybe she was annoyed with them all sitting there painting her nails and things, you know? Yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's, it's one of the things that Elliot comes to in the middle of the book, is this idea. She has said to him, "It was so beautiful when my friend Susan was dying. There were all these women, her daughters, her friends. We just surrounded her with love. I want that." And Elliot just sort of accepts that on face value. And it's only about halfway through the book where another character says to him, "That was her point of view. What about Susan's point of view? What about the point of view of the person who was actually dying?"

• 23:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, exactly.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  And that helps Elliot. Hearing that helps him. Not take it quite so painfully impersonally.

• 23:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I was wondering, though, why couldn't she include Elliot and all of them? Would he not fit with the other friends?

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Well, I think she had, I think she had a very romantic idea of this, this female circle, this warmth and love from her women friends. And it's a really whimsical thing that she does. I mean, she doesn't plan it way in advance. She's ill.

• 23:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Does she even think about how this is going to affect him?

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Well, I think she thinks about it. And then she has that, you know, you or me thing. She's like, am I gonna do this selfish act of requesting that my husband leave or not? And I think she thinks, well, here I am at the end. Don't we all want me to have the death I want?

• 24:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  And so she goes forward, not insensitively. And when, after she first says it, she kind of walks it back. It's not an easy thing for her to ask. But she...

• 24:22Oprah Winfrey?

  She not only asked it, she lived it. And they were drinking wine in there and laughing all the time.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  She did. She wanted to have some fun.

• 24:29Oprah Winfrey?

  She wanted to have some fun.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  In fact, if you think about the title, "Something Bright Nowhere," she wanted the bright.

• 24:33Oprah Winfrey?

  She wanted the bright.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:35Oprah Winfrey?

  When the Oprah Podcast returns, Ann Packer and I talk to a woman who moved in with her best friend during her cancer treatment.

• 24:42Speaker 11

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• 25:11Oprah Winfrey?

  A warm welcome back to you all. I'm with the New York Times bestselling author, Ann Packer, talking about her new novel that highlights the real-life challenges of being a caregiver. Jenna, where are you? Right there, I thought so.

• 25:24Speaker 12

  So Anne, your book really cracked my heart wide open. Two years ago, my best friend was diagnosed with cancer and I moved in with her. And lived with her for three months and then on and off for a full year. We got her through cancer. And it's a very special bond to be with someone through that whole journey. I mean, naps and talking and time you just don't get in real life. So that was experience number one. And then, two weeks ago, my friend lived her last four days of her life, a different friend. And she asked me to come be there with her, with her sisters. And so, this book, like your observations and what you talked about.

• 26:09Speaker 12

  Like you said, I had to stop. I just cried. I thought, was Anne with me? Like, how would you know that? Such in-depth.

• 26:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Like what? Share with us.

• 26:19Speaker 12

  So, to be there, the energy of women, of two sisters and myself, where her husband wanted her to be a trooper and you're being strong. We came in and just held the space for her to be however she was. She lived for four days. And I, it's nothing against the husbands. Like, that's, you know, I felt for Elliot. But there is something about your women friends who can just hold space for you. And you can just be however you want to be. And we didn't even have to talk. You could just hold hands. Whereas, there were times, and I know this is broad stroking it, but the husband wants to fix it. And what can I get you?

• 27:02Speaker 12

  And she was like, I'm done with the fixing. And she would look at me and say, please make this stop. You know, and so, and then just things that you talked about physically that happened.

• 27:13Oprah Winfrey?

  It is the nature of men to want to resolve the problem. It is, right, the nature to want to fix it.

• 27:20Speaker 12

  And at the very end, Oprah, there is no fixing. So there's just being.

• 27:24Oprah Winfrey?

  I got that.

• 27:25Speaker 12

  And I think female friends can do that for each other. You know, like.

• 27:28Oprah Winfrey?

  I learned that many years ago in the Oprah Show. We were talking about the same thing, about the differences between men and women. You might agree, Kyle, that men, or you guys, might agree that men want, okay, you're telling me this, so I need to now resolve it or fix it. Women just want to tell you. I'm just sharing my feelings. You don't have to fix anything. I'm just talking about it.

• 27:50Speaker 12

  And also, right to the very last day, we could have a joke or have like, and I get it, for the partner, this is so serious. This is the end. Your girlfriends can make you have a giggle right to the end. So there's that type of feminine energy that, you know, maybe that's what we crave at the end.

• 28:10Oprah Winfrey?

  So you understood why they took her away and they went out to Maine? And they had those final days.

• 28:18Speaker 12

  I really did. And your question, Oprah, was what I was thinking about of why, at the end, do we do what we want for our loved ones? Or, you know, so was Claire being totally selfish? And I know people have strong feelings about that. But I saw the other side of, I want my sisters and I want my girlfriend. And it was harsh to send him away, but does she get what she wants? Or are we people pleasing right until he closes his eyes?

• 28:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Till the last breath.

• 28:46Speaker 12

  Till the last breath.

• 28:47Oprah Winfrey?

  You people breathe, I don't want you in here, but...

• 28:51Speaker 12

  Exactly.

• 28:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Till the last breath.

• 28:54Speaker 12

  But so exceptionally written. And I really, I felt like you were sitting with me during that whole experience. It was so well-written. Thank you so much. And I'm sorry you went through that. But I also see the beauty in it. It was an honor. Truly, it was an honor.

• 29:09Oprah Winfrey?

  I wanted to ask Kyle, what did this experience of giving yourself this care partner caregiving experience and then being asked to leave and then in the end, coming back in the end to care give with her new boyfriend? What did that teach you about yourself?

• 29:29Speaker 08

  Well, I think it taught me that I loved Sarah regardless.

• 29:35Speaker 08

  You know, she, I saw her in the end just having less capacity, less and less. And she, so she, you know, so you think of it as calories. You've got so many calories to spend. And, and when we have our life ahead of us, we don't think of that in finite terms. But when we're staring down a terminal illness, that's all different. And so I think she saw me, someone who loved her, and she knew that, her, her boys, and, and some adventures she had never had. And, and she just did some math and made some decisions. And, and that wasn't about me. It wasn't an indictment of, of who I was. It took me a long time to get there.

• 30:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, that it wasn't about you, that it really was about her and her decision, as you were saying.

• 30:22Speaker 08

  It helps to understand too, she spent, you know, rather than having like a girl's weekend, she spent the last few months of her life in bed writing notes to my boys. So she's still very much alive in their, in their lives because of that. So that was, that took a lot of effort and time. And she wanted to spend it on that.

• 30:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I know. I remember one of the, you know, people always ask me about the Oprah shows that I did. And everybody always thinks that the most, they'll say, what's the most exciting or the most memorable? Everybody always thinks it's going to be about celebrities. And I say, it's never about celebrities. It's always about real people. And one of the real people I remember was dying of cancer and wrote, not just wrote, but did tapes of, for every birthday for her daughter until she would turn 18, about what to do when you go to your first prom. And this is what's going to happen with your period. This is what's going to happen when I die, that daddy's going to want to marry somebody else. The daughter was only six, so she did them for every birthday up until 18.

• 31:26Oprah Winfrey?

  And that takes a lot of time and thought and energy to do that, so. We, all of us who are listening to your story, admire the man that you showed up to be in that moment. We can say, you should be proud of yourself for the man you showed up to be in that moment.

• 31:42Speaker 08

  Thank you.

• 31:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Robin.

• 31:46Speaker 06

  Hi. So I'm a caregiver myself for my mother who has dementia. I think first and foremost, I really appreciated the perspective that you took from the caregiver side. A lot of that resonated despite the difference in illness. Some of this you covered with regard to the relationship and Claire's desire, the way she expressed it was really what she wanted, but she never said why. She never gave Elliot a reason why he had to leave for her to have this experience. So I was just curious if you felt that that was symbolic of relationships, that sometimes we just have really hard time speaking the truth to one another. And at times, perhaps it's easier to just take what you need and worry less about other people's feelings.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  You know, it's interesting. First of all, or back up. I'm sorry for what you're going through with your mother. My mother just died of complications of Alzheimer's, and it's a very long, hard passage. So I'm sorry for that. I think Claire told as much of the truth that she could and the version of the truth that she knew at the time. I think one thing that I try to do in books is weave together what's going on consciously for the characters and then what's going on unconsciously.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  And, you know, we don't want to give the ending away, but I think one of the journeys in the book is Claire and then Elliot coming to understand what was really motivating her. But she couldn't have told him that at the beginning because she didn't know it yet.

• 33:32Speaker 06

  Tashan?

• 33:34Speaker 13

  Hi.

• 33:34Speaker 06

  Hi.

• 33:35Speaker 13

  So when I was reading the book, I really felt like the story was pushed forward by Claire's wants and desires. And I was curious to know, like, what are your thoughts about kind of the final wants and desires of the terminally ill? And should their wants or do their wants hold more weight than those of their caregivers or their loved ones?

• 33:58Speaker 02

  I think they do often. I haven't been personally involved in that many situations, but I would say there's no friend or family member of mine who has died whose experience wasn't privileged over everybody else's. This is it, you know? I think having someone make a dying wish is a very powerful thing.

• 34:29Oprah Winfrey?

  On page 42, you write, "She had given him his fatherhood. It wasn't just that she had given him children. She had given him his way of being a father, the greatest gift of his life. And after the gift, that was Claire herself. But alone out here, with her so far away and so close to being entirely gone, he was lost." Do you ever make yourself cry with your own writing? Because I know a lot of people did.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  I would say, well, not while I'm writing.

• 35:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Embarrassingly, when I read it afterwards sometimes.

• 35:04Oprah Winfrey?

  You do, tear up.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  I have on occasion, yeah.

• 35:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And on page 133, you write, "Cancer had taken something from her that was not energy or verb or ambition. It wasn't happiness or even contentment. It was an essential part of her that she couldn't name. She could only miss it." I can ask you this, who's watched your friend. What do you think cancer takes away from people? And then I'll let you answer that, too.

• 35:33Speaker 12

  For my friend who just passed, it took away the life. She had more to do. She was very angry. It took away her inner, like, her essence. And I also wanted to mention that I found it curious with her at the end that she was so sad for her husband that she was disappointing him, like, at the end, "Oh, I'm leaving." And I found that really interesting, that, like, there's guilt at the end that you're the one who... And you touched on that. You wrote about that, and that was so insightful. But you lose your inner essence of who you are. Cancer just takes that away.

• 36:13Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you think?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  It takes away...

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Your identity is someone who doesn't have cancer in a certain way, you know what I mean? It changes everything. You're no longer living in the land of people who haven't been affected by this thing. And once you have been with a disease like cancer, are you ever really out of the woods? So it kind of, it takes away your sense of confidence that you're going to have the life you always thought you were going to have.

• 36:45Oprah Winfrey?

  That's interesting. Did you find that too?

• 36:48Speaker 08

  Absolutely.

• 36:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. Because now you're forever a cancer patient. That's why I know a lot of people hide it for as long as they can because they don't want to be known as the cancer patient because you're no longer seen as a full-bodied person.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  You've lived in the land of the ill.

• 37:06Oprah Winfrey?

  You've lived in the land of the ill. Okay. Colleen, where are you?

• 37:12Speaker 14

  My story is I lost my sister to pancreatic cancer. And a year later, my brother called to say he had pancreatic cancer as well. And would I come live with him and be his caretaker? And I did, and he lived for 14 months. And what I found interesting about their relationship, at first I was very angry with Claire. But when Elliot was musing about their marriage and conceded that he always agreed with her and really in the end always conceded to what she wanted, I wondered if Claire

• 37:55Speaker 14

  brought in her friends so he would fight to say, no, I want to be the one that spends these last months, days, whatever you have left. And also would he help her to fight death and to live as long as she could, as best she could, even with this prognosis that death is coming and there is no treatment left? So that's where I took it.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  That's such an interesting idea that she was basically testing him.

• 38:30Speaker 14

  Yes.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Are you going to?

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Stand up for yourself and stand up for this marriage. That had never occurred to me while I was working.

• 38:40Oprah Winfrey?

  That never occurred to her.

• 38:43Oprah Winfrey?

  You have raised a point, Colleen, that never occurred to the author.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  But I will argue that the unconscious of my characters is unknown even to me. So it could have been under the surface for her percolating.

• 38:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think she wanted anyone to help her fight it anymore. I mean, I think the whole, the whole point of this passage, they've stopped treatment. They're entering hospice. It's, it's about what happens after you fight.

• 39:17Oprah Winfrey?

  I, I think people who've been married or together, as you were saying earlier, for 35 or 40 years can relate to how Elliot is processing a future without Claire. And on page 231, you write, he'd been talking about Claire for nearly 40 years, but it came to him that going forward, when he talked about Claire, he would be talking about someone who was fixed in time, who had stopped being. The idea pierced him with its strangeness. I know you must have felt this with your brother and your sister too.

• 39:52Speaker 14

  I did, and I, you know, personally, for me, I've never married, nor do I have children. And I never even had a pet. So I only took care of me. And I thought, how am I going to take care of my brother who's entrusting me? And I was scared that I wouldn't be able to do the job.

• 40:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you tell him that?

• 40:16Speaker 14

  No, I said, I will be there tomorrow. I, you know, hung up the phone with him and packed my bag. And the whole hour and a half way there, I kept saying, how am I going to do this?

• 40:28Oprah Winfrey?

  But you did.

• 40:29Speaker 14

  But I did. You know, when you love so deeply.

• 40:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 14

  And he was the only brother, the oldest. I was the youngest. And I looked up to him my whole life. There was a 12-year age difference between us. So if there wasn't anything, I wouldn't do for my siblings.

• 40:47Oprah Winfrey?

  And did it give you an opportunity to know him in a way that you hadn't before?

• 40:52Speaker 14

  Absolutely. He was a totally different person. And because he was the oldest, he knew stories about the family and relatives and my grandparents that I had never heard. I didn't know. We talked about all these things. It cleared up so many things for me.

• 41:10Oprah Winfrey?

  And what did it teach you about yourself, as I was asking Kyle?

• 41:13Speaker 14

  It taught me, under any circumstances, that I can rise to the occasion and do what has to be done. It made me say, you better start living a life. And you better appreciate it in a different way. I am a homebody and all of that. But it pushed me back into the world. And as a caregiver, you come out of the world around you because you're centered on just caring for this person.

• 41:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. More of my conversation about end-of-life care with the beloved novelist Anne Packer when we come back.

• 41:53Speaker 15

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• 42:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Thanks for joining us on the Oprah Podcast. Next, we're going to hear Anne's reflections on how she hopes her novel will inspire readers to have conversations about the end of life. So this brought lots of things to the surface for you, which I'm talking about this character Elliot, for whom it also brought so many things to the surface. He was saying, how could he have failed to understand that she would no longer be, he would never again just talk about her, his wife, in the other room, at home for the evening, back in Connecticut, discussing her with someone who knew her, describing her to someone who didn't, but might meet her someday. What did writing this book bring to the surface for you?

• 43:00Speaker 02

  I think it focused my...

• 43:05Speaker 02

  My interest in the way people function in very, very difficult times.

• 43:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  And it was...

• 43:14Oprah Winfrey?

  And isn't that part of the reason why you wrote the book too? The producer said to me, you wanted to normalize this conversation around the end of life.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  I think we have a hard time talking about it. I know that I've been in experiences when friends have been approaching death and I've seen that it frightens people a lot.

• 43:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  And then that can come between them and the person who's so ill. So I think it's important to be able to talk about the fear and then possibly move beyond it so that you can have that sort of beautiful intimacy, painful, beautiful intimacy with someone.

• 43:58Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm wondering if other cultures handle it differently because it seems like in our culture, it's like, oh, God, you can't even say that you're gonna die when every time I say that, somebody, particularly the girls, are like, oh, don't say that. Well, it's going to happen. It's going to happen, yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  I think so. I think there are many cultures that do it a lot better. And part of the issue, I think, is that we don't have a lot of rituals around people

• 44:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  becoming ill and dying. It's medicalized. Not necessarily, you know, that's not a bad thing. We need medicine. But this sort of rituals to handle just the notion of this passage into, you know, out of life.

• 44:47Oprah Winfrey?

  I just read an article about, you know, Canada has made it legal for euthanasia and how so many people now, at the end of their lives, who know they're going to die and are planning their death ceremonies, are having these rituals. They're having these life celebration parties and making decisions about how they want that to happen. I know Claire would have been very happy with that. She would have been very happy with that.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  She had her own little party.

• 45:14Oprah Winfrey?

  She had her own little party.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Or tried to.

• 45:16Oprah Winfrey?

  At the end of writing this story and you put it away and you hit send and you send it off to your publisher, what sense of, did you feel a sense of relief, a sense of gratitude, a sense of...?

• 45:32Speaker 02

  I think I felt a sense of completion.

• 45:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Completion?

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, I don't let something go until I'm really

• 45:40Speaker 02

  finished with it, happy with it. I've rewritten it a thousand times. And that send, that send moment is sort of a way to formalize saying to yourself.

• 45:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Done.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  It's done. You finished.

• 45:54Oprah Winfrey?

  It is done.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you so much for Some Bright Nowhere. Thank you, thank you. And thank you to this audience. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Jenna. Thank you for sharing your stories with us. Thank you for living through that and then rising to be someone even better than you thought yourself to be, to be able to do that. I really have great admiration and highest regard for you all being able to do that, for your friends, for your relatives, for your brother and your sister. Talking about great books, y'all, is one of my favorite things in life. So, thank you for sharing in that with me. Some Bright Nowhere is available wherever books are sold. A heartfelt thank you to our wonderful partner, Starbucks, for all of your support in bringing together

• 46:41Oprah Winfrey?

  good books, good coffee, and good people. These are good people, good thinking people. And our neighborhood Starbucks Cafe is a perfect place to cozy up with a book. Starting with that peppermint mocha. Go well, everybody. Thank you, Ann. Thank you so much.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.