Discussion Questions

1.     Why do you think Bruni chose the title The Beauty of Dusk for this memoir?

2. Bruni writes about sincerely embracing the familiar sayings that emphasize the bright side of human resilience when faced with hardship: “When you’re given lemons, you can indeed make lemonade, and that was a big part of my education, which included the confirmation . . . that clouds have silver linings and that the night is darkest before dawn.” After reading the book, do you agree with Bruni’s perspective? Do you feel the same way about your own experiences?

3. When Bruni was in college, he absorbed the refrain of a psychology professor: “Life is about adjusting to loss.” What do you think the professor meant? Do you agree with this statement?

4. After Bruni loses partial vision, he grows more aware of other people’s hidden pain. He imagines a world where everybody walked through life with a sandwich board advertising their invisible struggles. “If each of us had just a glimpse of the burdens that people were shouldering,” he says, “we’d all be a whole lot less consumed with our own misfortunes and slights—and a whole lot more understanding of other people’s moods and misdeeds.” What are some ways in which we could make this world a reality without adopting literal sandwich boards?

5. What’s one thing that your sandwich board would say?

6. Are you open about difficulties? Why or why not?

7. The Beauty of Dusk is a memoir of one man’s life-altering experience, yet Bruni looks for wisdom in the stories of other individuals who live with physical limitations or emotional pain such as grief. Which of the other stories in the book spoke to you most profoundly, and why?

8. How has this book changed the way that you think about aging?

9. Living through the COVID-19 pandemic prompted many of us to reevaluate our lives. Bruni writes, “Many people I know were as surprised by how many activities they didn’t miss as by how many they did. . . . They discovered that at least a few of the ways in which life was collapsed, constrained and cloistered had upsides.” Did you find yourself evolving as Bruni described? Or did you experience different revelations?

Adapted from: https:// www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Beauty-of-Dusk  /Frank-Bruni/9781982108588