Megan Nix was the keynote speaker for Moderna, Inc. in March 2020, and her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Brain, Child Magazine, The Denver Post, The Iowa Review, and she won the Editor’s Prize at Fourth Genre Magazine: Explorations in Nonfiction. An excerpt from Remedies for Sorrow was a finalist for The Missouri Review’s 2021 Jeffrey E. Smith Prize. Megan has served as a Community Alliance Chair for the National CMV Foundation and holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She lives between Colorado and Alaska with her husband and their four children.
Remedies For Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother’s Pursuit of the Truth
by Megan Nix
Doubleday, April 2023
A new classic memoir about a mother’s fierce love for her exceptional child and her courageous journey to break the silence about a hidden risk to pregnant women.
After a seemingly uneventful pregnancy, Megan Nix’s second daughter, Anna, was born very small and profoundly deaf. Megan and her husband, Luke, learned that Anna could have lifelong delays due to an infection from a virus they had never heard of: cytomegalovirus, or CMV, which Megan had unwittingly contracted from her toddler during pregnancy.
Megan was electrified by this knowledge. She had been warned, while pregnant, about the risks of saunas, sushi, and unpasteurized cheese, a lack of folic acid, and an excess of kitty litter. She knew to fear a slew of genetic syndromes she could do little to prevent. But she had not been told that CMV is contagious in the saliva of one out of three toddlers, spread through a kiss, a shared cup, a bite of unfinished toast. She had not been told that the stakes were high, that congenital CMV causes more birth defects and childhood disabilities—including blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and autism—than any infectious disease. Or that some of these disabilities are evident at birth, but others appear suddenly at age two or three and are never traced back to congenital CMV.
Remedies for Sorrow unfolds across the dramatic landscape of Sitka, Alaska, where Luke makes his living as a salmon fisherman. There, Megan struggles to meet Anna’s needs and dives deeper into the mystery of why no one—not her OBGYN, not her toddler’s pediatrician—had mentioned CMV, despite the staggering cost of this silence to families and children like Anna. From this rugged and beautiful place comes a memoir about the boundless capacity of mothers, the extraordinary child that is Anna, and the lifesaving power of truth.
*Amazon Best Book of the Month in biography/memoir*
*People Magazine “New In Nonfiction” selection*
"In her compulsively readable memoir, Megan Nix brings to light an issue that has been too long ignored. Remedies for Sorrow is an immensely important book."—Emily Oster, New York Times bestselling author of Cribsheet
"This is so much more than a book about medicine; it is a fierce, tender, intimate, beautifully written meditation on motherhood. The harsh beauty of Alaska and the intricate grace of her faith weave through Megan's story like silver and gold threads, invitations to sink deeply into the story of a life that is alternately heart-breaking and heart-healing—and that very much needs to be told." —Cara Wall, author of The Dearly Beloved, a Read with Jenna pick
"How did a virus that mothers pass to their children — one that leads to significant, sometimes tragic, lifelong effects — become, as Megan Nix puts it, 'nonexistent in the narrative of pregnancy?' Written with passion, wisdom and grace, Remedies for Sorrow is both a beautiful family story and an urgent call to action. An essential, moving, potentially life-altering book." — Robert Kolker, Number One New York Times Bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, an Oprah's Book Club pick
“Nix is honest and forthcoming, an engaging writer with a gift for description. CMV is just beginning to get the attention it deserves from the medical world, and this timely and insightful account will help raise awareness.” -Booklist (starred review)
“[A] moving debut…In sharing the fears, frustrations, and challenges she has faced, the author lays bare both insidious medical paternalism and the dismal failure of public health policy. An inspiring memoir with an urgent message.” - Kirkus Reviews