Kryhoski is currently working as a freelance writer. In this essay, she considers the emotional complexities of Ernaux's work as they relate the author's personal experience with a dying parent.

I Remain In Darkness—the final written words of an aging, ailing woman, and the title of a memoir by Ernaux. Composed merely out of "jottings" on "small, undated scraps of paper," Ernaux wrote of her "bewilderment and distress" experienced in the company of her mother. Her writings have an emotive power precisely because they capture the mix of emotions an individual may feel caring for an elderly mother with brutal honesty. An elderly dependent parent can inspire love, revulsion or disgust, anger, and as a result, guilt and fear. Ernaux's scribblings betray her conflicted feelings. Her account has a surreal or fantastic quality about it, bringing into sharp focus the distorted emotions of the author.

Ernaux...