Reverence and anticipation hung in the air as Donald Hall, now 78, mustered the fortitude, though not without tears, to read from his latest book, "The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon," captivating a multi-generational audience at Silver Cultural Arts Center at Plymouth State University Sunday, April 24. The final reading of this season's Eagle Pond Authors' Series event offered a preview of what's in store for audiences at Hall's upcoming appearance in the newly established New Hampshire Authors' Series at the University of New Hampshire on Sunday, May 1.

Hall's memoir offers an intimate, detailed, courageous and uplifting view of the couple's day-to-day struggles with the onset of Kenyon's leukemia, which ravaged her in just 15 months at the age of 47.

"Jane Kenyon died of leukemia at 7:57 in the morning, April 22, 1995," begins the book, which will be released by Houghton Mifflin on May 28. Hall makes it clear that his wife's illness stunned and clobbered them; yet, the story's calibration is authentic. Readers develop the sense that Hall does not drive the story, but follows it, as their circle of friends and family rally around the couple. Picturesque Wilmot, N.H., tucked between Kearsarge and Ragged mountains, provides a lovely backdrop, and appealing neighbors and a community of literary and church friends complete the picture and act as an offset to the intense, overwrought atmosphere of hospitals, doctors' offices and home hospice.

Hall also addresses the joy and frolic of their 23-year marriage: lovemaking, doting on their pets, opening their mail, reading aloud, and traveling to China, Japan and India. Kenyon, 19 years his junior, nicknamed Hall "Perkins" after having met him as his student at the University of Michigan. The book chronicles their gutsy decision to leave the security of academia and return to Hall's ancestral homestead at Eagle Pond Farm in Wilmot. It also delves into their writing processes and the development of their dual careers as writers working together within unique boundaries they set forth.

Just weeks prior to Kenyon's diagnosis, the couple was the focus of an Emmy Award-winning interview with Bill Moyers. Hall, recovering from surgery for cancer, expressed concern over his prognosis. Doctors had advised him that he had maybe a handful of years remaining. His concern was how Jane would get by without him. His looming death caused visible stress for Kenyon. Appearing spectacularly beautiful and vibrant, yet bearing a shroud of melancholy and rage, Kenyon told Moyers, "There was a lot of screaming and gnashing of teeth around here." Then the Hall-Kenyon life-script shifted the gnashing of teeth and howling to Hall and it was Kenyon who asked, ultimately, of her nicknamed beloved, "What will Perkins do?" The memoir and Hall's readings give readers an idea of what Perkins does: he survives.

The story of the Hall-Kenyon marriage does not require the sensationalism of a "sweeps week" mentality, scripted reality television programming, or revisionist retelling. Romanticism, chivalry, raw courage and real-life drama are alive within these pages. The couple weathered many hardships and learned to revel in "a day when nothing happened." There's no shmaltz, no maudlin thoughts. Instead, Hall delivers an authentic accounting of what it was like to thrive within his and Kenyon's self-designed "life of double solitude," move upward in dual careers, and, ultimately, for one to shift into the role of principal caretaker for the beloved other, unto death.

Unique personalities are not diminished within this marriage; rather, each is enhanced. The book beautifully weaves life's positives and negatives so they're believable. Yes, he battles cancer and Jane struggles with depression and mania and succumbs to cancer, but Hall's creative sequencing of the chapters both chronologically and topically enables readers to alternate between the couple's overwhelming suffering and the bulk of life-affirming moments they enjoyed in each other's company. Hall speaks poetically of each being separate and whole. He didn't lose half of himself when he lost Kenyon; each was whole and it's the loss of that whole, beautiful "other one" which he mourns.

What did Perkins do? He folded and unfolded and began living again.

As Hall commented on Sunday afternoon, "Yes, there is terrible grieving, but there is great joy, too." Then the engaging Hall said with a smile and a hint of boyishness, "I love and I work every day." He lives fully, just as Jane and his readership wish it.

Donald Hall at UNH

This week, Rebecca Rule will interview Donald Hall as part of The University of New Hampshire's newly established New Hampshire Authors' Series. The event will take place on Sunday, May 1 at 2 p.m. at Dimond Library, with signing and a reception to follow. Admission is free but seating is limited. Make reservations by calling 603-862-1540 or writing to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

New Hampshire Public Television will record the event for airing at a later time and for use in New Hampshire classrooms as part of a movement to promote literacy, thanks to the efforts of the authors, Rebecca Rule, The Friends of The Dimond Library and the UNH Alumni Association.