Dusk, Night, Dawn, by Anne Lamott

From the bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow comes an inspiring guide to restoring hope and joy in our lives.

In Dusk, Night, Dawn, Anne Lamott explores the tough questions that many of us grapple with. How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad news piles up—from climate crises to daily assaults on civility—how can we cope? Where, she asks, “do we start to get our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?”

We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity.

Drawing from her own experiences, Lamott shows us the intimate and human ways we can adopt to move through life’s dark places and toward the light of hope that still burns ahead for all of us.

As she does in Help, Thanks, Wow and her other bestselling books, Lamott explores the thorny issues of life and faith by breaking them down into manageable, human-sized questions for readers to ponder, in the process showing us how we can amplify life's small moments of joy by staying open to love and connection. As Lamott notes in Dusk, Night, Dawn, “I got Medicare three days before I got hitched, which sounds like something an old person might do, which does not describe adorably ageless me.” Marrying for the first time with a grown son and a grandson, Lamott explains that finding happiness with a partner isn't a function of age or beauty but of outlook and perspective.

Full of the honesty, humor, and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Dusk, Night, Dawn is classic Anne Lamott—thoughtful and comic, warm and wise—and further proof that Lamott truly speaks to the better angels in all of us.

Dusk, Night, Dawn: Revival and Courage

In Dusk, Night, Dawn, Lamott writes of giving and finding love, hope, courage, and forgiveness, even when we ourselves, like those we want to love and forgive, are messy, imperfect human beings. Written in 2020, during the pandemic, and published in 2021, the book touches on Lamott’s response to the many terrible things occurring in the world: climate change, wildfires, the pandemic, and the rising tide of authoritarianism, fascism, and the demonizing of people who aren’t “like us.” That’s what drew me to the book, and I did find some wisdom and comfort in her belief that the way through is found in love, in sustaining hope, in supporting and reaching out to others.

Lamott writes with honesty, wry humor, and a deep understanding of both the beauty and ugliness of the human spirit. Her essays (or chapters) weave together stories from her own life and those of others, wandering from one story to another and back in ways that look, on the surface, as though she’s constantly distracted…until you realize that she is also completely in charge of the narrative, and every diversion leads back to the central point. Lamott is an excellent storyteller, and while there are moments of sheer beauty (and others of laugh-out-loud humor) in her writing, her writing never loses sight of the goal: to tell the stories and connect them to human experience.

I found a lot to think about in her thoughts on human nature, the nature of the soul, forgiveness, and her repeated recognition of herself, like those around her, as both messed-up and capable of finding, appreciating, and accepting the divine: in the world, in each other in ourselves. As someone with anxiety, I found the chapter that begins with dread, which Lamott describes as “my governess growing up,” particularly relatable, as was the following chapter, which begins “I have a doctorate in morbid reflection, and a grave anxiety disorder, which is not ideal for our times…”—in which, among other stories, Lamott has a panic attack in a theater during a storytelling event (for which she is the audience, not one of the storytellers.)

The book did not have quite as much of an impact on me as Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. But I marked several passages to ponder and perhaps copying into my commonplace book, including these:

Look around and see whom you can serve. This will fill you. Never give up on intimate friendships or science or nature. They have always saved us, and they will again. And love is the mastermind of it all: “The soul of genius,” Mozart reputedly said, “is love, love, love.” We need to stop racing and to savor beauty, to look up from our screens at the weather, one another’s faces, the ocean, the desert, a garden, and architecture, which is another kind of garden.

The hope is in knowing that this love trumps all, trumps evil, hate, and death. It makes us real, as life slowly sews us our human shirts.* We are being shepherded beyond our fears and needs to becoming our actual selves. This sucks and hurts some days, and I frequently to not want it or agree to it. But it persists, like water wearing through a boulder in the river. Hope springs from realizing we are loved, can love, and are love with skin on. Then we are unstoppable. …Love is not a concept. It’s alive and true, a generative and nutritious flickering force that is marbled through life.

*a reference to the fairytale of the Six Swans

Challenges: COYER Unwind, Chapter 4 (Fall)

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• COYER Unwind (2024) – Chapter 4

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