There’s been a lot of sadness in my life over the past few months. If there’s a key lesson I learned from the latest work by these authors, who are among the best self-help writers out there, it’s that denying sadness is the worst thing we could do. Accepting sadness helps us to be compassionate towards others and to acknowledge but ultimately let go of generational pain. There are measures we can take to mitigate sadness – a focus of the second half of Russell’s book – but it can’t be avoided altogether. Alongside the classics of bereavement literature I have been rereading, I found these two books to be valuable companions in grief.
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain (2022)
Cain’s Quiet must be one of the best-known nonfiction books of the millennium. It felt like vindication for introverts everywhere. Bittersweet is a little more nebulous in strategy but, boiled down, is a defence of the melancholic personality, one of the types identified by Aristotle (also explored in Richard Holloway’s The Heart of Things). Sadness is not the same as clinical depression, Cain rushes to clarify, though the two might coexist. Melancholy is often associated with creativity and sensitivity, and can lead us into empathy for others. Suffering and death seem like things to flee, but if we sit with them, we will truly be part of the human race and, per the “wounded healer” archetype, may also work toward restoration.
A love for minor-key music, especially songs by Leonard Cohen, is what initially drew Cain to this topic, but there are other autobiographical seeds: the deaths of many ancestors, including her rabbi grandfather’s entire family, in the Holocaust; her difficult relationship with her controlling mother, who now has dementia; and the deaths from Covid of both her brother, a hospital doctor, and her elderly father in 2020.
Through interviews and attendance at conferences and other events, she draws in various side topics, like the longing that prompts mysticism (Kabbalah and Sufism), loving-kindness meditation, an American culture of positivity that demands “effortless perfection,” ways the business world could cultivate empathy, and how knowledge of death makes life precious. (The only chapter I found less than essential was one about transhumance – the hope of escaping death altogether. Mark O’Connell has that topic covered.) Cain weaves together her research with autobiographical material naturally. As a shy introvert with melancholy tendencies, I found both Quiet and Bittersweet comforting.
With thanks to Viking (Penguin) for the proof copy for review.
How to Be Sad: The Key to a Happier Life by Helen Russell (2021)
A reread, though I only skimmed the first time around – my tiny points of criticism would be that the book is a tad long – the print in the paperback is really rather small – and retreads some of the same ground as Leap Year (e.g., how exercise and culture can contribute to a sense of wellbeing). I read that just last year, after enjoying The Year of Living Danishly with my book club. She’s a reliable nonfiction author; I’d liken her to a funnier Gretchen Rubin.
Russell has an appealingly self-deprecating style and breezily highlights statistics alongside personal anecdotes. Here she faces sources of sadness in her life head-on: her younger sister’s death from SIDS and the silence that surrounded that loss; her parents’ divorce and her sense of being abandoned by her father; struggles with eating disorders and alcohol and exercise addiction; and relationship trials, from changing herself to please boyfriends to undergoing IVF with her husband, T (aka “Legoman”), and adjusting to life as a mother of three.
As in her other self-help work, she interviews lots of experts and people who have gone through similar things to understand why we’re sad and what to do about it. I particularly appreciated chapters on “arrival fallacy” and “summit syndrome,” both of which refer to a feeling of letdown after we achieve what we think will make us happy, whether that be parenthood or the South Pole. Better to have intrinsic goals than external ones, Russell learns.
She also considers cultural differences in how we approach sadness: for instance, Russians relish sadness and teach their children to do the same, whereas the English, especially men, are expected to bury their feelings. Russell notes a waning of the rituals that could help us cope with loss, and a rise in unhealthy coping mechanisms. Like Cain, she also covers sad music (vs. one of her interviewees prescribing Jack Johnson as a mood equalizer). There are lots of laughs to be had, but the epilogue can’t fail to bring a tear to the eye. (Public library)
Both: 
I found this quote from the Russell a handy summary of both authors’ premise. Dr Lucy Johnstone says:
“The key question when encountering someone with mental or emotional distress shouldn’t be, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ but rather, ‘What’s happened to you?’”
Suffering is coming for all of us, so why not arm yourself to deal with it and help others through? That’s always been one of my motivations for reading widely: to understand other people’s situations and prepare myself for what the future holds.
Could you see yourself reading a book about sadness?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Ah, I loved Quiet and Bittersweet also sounds great. I completely agree about the importance of letting yourself feel sadness rather than trying to power through it. Thinking of you, Rebecca x
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Thank you! I feel like US/UK culture expects people to ‘get over it’ within weeks or months, and if you’re still sad after that it’s your own problem.
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I’ve been on the waitlist for Bittersweet at the library for a while (my turn came around and I missed it over summer, so I’m back on the waitlist!). Hadn’t come across the Russell, so will look out for it.
Obviously I don’t need convincing about the importance of making room for sadness (you may recall I’m a grief and loss counsellor) but it’s interesting that making room for sadness is a new idea for many of my clients.
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Bittersweet is definitely one for you.
My dad and stepsister have both mentioned talk therapy to me, and my stepfather is thinking about finding a counsellor or attending Griefshare (might be a US-only thing?). I guess I have always felt ‘I am not bad off enough to need it’ but maybe that’s the wrong attitude. I am also not very talkative, being a shy introvert, so I feel like a talking-based therapy would be hard for me, though I’m sure it could help if I was open.
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The stiff upper lip is still so prevalent and talking about the things that make us sad would surely be a good thing for many of us (another shy introvert here). I’d like to read both of these books.
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Henry Hitchings mentioned that to Helen Russell, that among fellow English people he felt he had to keep everything buttoned up, whereas people from other countries were more likely to acknowledge his loss and his sadness.
I wouldn’t have described you as shy!
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Ooh I am, but I mask it well!
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Bittersweet sounds wonderful. My mother has been particularly excellent at holding space for my grandmother’s sadness and anger around her bereavement and dementia diagnosis; it’s been an extraordinary thing to watch. Western culture (US/UK, I guess) really does assume you’ve forgotten or moved on after a month or so, or at least that your grief and sadness will diminish in an algorithmic sort of way. Sending big virtual hugs to you.
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Supporting others through grief is a real art. I’ve been grateful for those who have been through it and continue to check up on me.
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I haven’t read Cain but this does sound good. I think we have a long way to go in terms of dealing with grief, I don’t really have any answers but I feel admiration for those who can make it part of life, even when or especially when it endures. It certainly changes us, it feels for me like a kind of consciousness raising, because I perceive things differently since my great loss. 🙏🏼✨🕊️
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In other places and other times grief has been made much more a part of life — customs like wearing black, then brown or grey for a certain number of months, meant you and others couldn’t forget what you were going through.
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I remember such a feeling of kinship when reading Quiet. As someone who buried her sadness and grief (or attempted to) when I lost my mother aged 19, I couldn’t agree more with your first paragraph. Sadness will find a way out eventually. Best not to fight it. I’m glad you’ve found books comforting, Rebecca.
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I had forgotten about your early loss. That must have coloured so much of your young adulthood. Russell and her mother never really talked about her little sister’s death until decades later. In the final scene they visit the grave together and it’s very powerful.
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I enjoyed Bittersweet. I find it encouraging that making room for grief seems to be gaining adherents in US culture. It’s got a long way to go but books like Cain’s help.
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I’m always reassured to know there are other melancholy introverts out there and it’s not just me being morbid 🙂
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Your grief must be particularly hard when you’re in another continent completely and can’t easily touch base with others who may share and understand your loss. I try to remember to send positive thoughts from time to time!
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I appreciate that, thank you.
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I loved QUIET (of course) and didn’t know the author had another book out. Sounds like one I’d like. I’m reading (slowly) Ross Gay’s INCITING JOY, which is not self-help but essays. However, I find his exploration, reflection, and where he lands very inspirational–especially around sadness and grief (something not really reflected in the title of the book). His premise is that it’s only in confronting our individual and collective sorrows, together, that we can hope to find joy–an earned kind of happiness we can cultivate. Sending you vibes of comfort, Rebecca, as you work through your own period of sadness.
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Thank you. And that sounds fantastic. I have his Book of Delights on the stack!
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I just recently listened to Bittersweet and loved it. It makes so much sense. I thought it was interesting about what she said about different cultures. I think because of our tendency to want to just get over things and move on means we haven’t learned how to support people in their grief. I wish I was better at it. I have a friend who is very good at it, and I’ve tried to learn from her.
I’ve always loved sad stories, sad movies, sad songs, and now I have a much better understanding of why that is!
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Did she narrate the audiobook herself? You always strike me as a very upbeat and optimistic person, but that doesn’t prevent you appreciating the bittersweet in life as well 🙂
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She does narrate it herself.
You’re right – I’m an optimist. But I also love sad songs and stories and movies. And things can be so pretty/cute/joyful they hurt. Sometimes I have to shut down my most joyful thoughts because they hurt too much to think about, which doesn’t make any sense. But I think Susan Cain gets it. And she explains it better than I do!
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Bittersweet does sound like an important one to read, but I feel like it might be overwhelming and let me sit with my natural melancholy a bit *too* much. I presume I’m overthinking that and it’s OK.
When I lost a friend a year or so ago and was struggling to deal with my grief, I had a very good conversation with a counsellor at CRUSE, the bereavement charity, over online chat: they worked with me to realise it was OK to be grief-stricken but to channel it into appropriate places, e.g. not dwelling on the circumstances but creating a little ritual to remember my friend and put out care for her other friends on her anniversary day. It really helped. The CBT course I did in the last year helped me understand about leaving space for stuff, acknowledging it but not getting mired down, which also helped.
Sorry, seem to be treating this as a therapy session: as you were!
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I took my time over Bittersweet; in fact, I started it in May last year, set it aside and then went back to it late in the year when it had taken on new significance. Cain draws in various topics and meets a lot of interesting people, so I never found it too heavy.
It had never occurred to me that online therapy sessions are a thing now. We’ve encouraged my stepfather to get counselling. I can’t imagine myself doing it, but who knows. I think it will be important to create little rituals of remembrance, and to take time annually to make a pilgrimage to my mother’s gravesite.
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I didn’t feel like I needed (deserved) a full set of grief counselling but I was v wobbly and the chat with a therapist helped immensely with my “is this normal?” stuff (I feel like I have a handle on the usual grief processes even though I don’t read as many grief memoirs as some, but my friend sadly lost her life through an act of violence and that’s what had really thrown me). The CBT course I did was partly out of desperation as my anxiety was getting to me (I don’t mind the depression as you can still make yourself do things with that, whereas the anxiety was holding me back and making me unwell physically). I could wait months to see someone or do an online CBT course and while I was sceptical, it was really good (and overseen by a practitioner).
I feel like you have a good handle on yourself and grief processes but don’t rule a bit of counselling out if you need it. You can just have an online chat or phone call with someone at CRUSE for example.
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I’m sorry about your friend. That must be so hard. One thing both of these books, and various other grief-related books I’ve read, make a point of saying is that there’s no hierarchy of loss. You can’t compare yours to someone else’s and say, “oh, mine isn’t as bad, I shouldn’t be this sad.” It’s great that there are these online options now. I’ll keep them in mind.
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Yes, I learned that powerfully – having been all “Oh, it’s just a friend and she had closer friends” etc.
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