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An epic novel—based on true events—of love, grief, race, and wealth, charting a single sweltering summer in Atlanta that left no one unchanged.
On a humid summer day, the phones begin to ring: disaster has struck. Chateau de Sully, a Boeing 707 chartered to ferry home more than one hundred of Atlanta's most prominent citizens from a European jaunt, crashed in Paris shortly after takeoff. It is the second-deadliest disaster in the history of aviation. Overnight, the city of Atlanta changes.
Left behind are children, spouses, lovers, and friends faced with renegotiating their lives. Robert, a newspaper editor, must decide if he can reconnect with his beloved but estranged wife, whose swindler parents have left her penniless. Nineteen-year-old Piedmont Dobbs, recently denied admission to an integrated school, senses a moment of uncertain opportunity. And Mayor Ivan Allen is tasked with the job of moving Atlanta forward—the hedonism of the 60s and the urgency of the Civil Rights movement at his city's doorstep.
Visible Empire is the story of a husband and wife who can't begin to understand each other until chaos drives them to clarity. It's a story of the promise and hope that remain in the wake of crisis.
Published in hardcover in 2018
You can see the full discussion in our legacy forum here. This discussion will contain spoilers!
Some of the recent comments posted about Visible Empire:
"Aha Moments" for the book's title
Besides what acstrine said above, with which I agree, the book's title struck me from the beginning as appropriate--it was a very "visible empire" kind of thing that all these prominent Atlantans could afford to go on such an expensive--even in 1962-... - juliaa
Are you familiar with Atlanta? If so, what is your perception of the city?
I spent a week in Atlanta on business and another three days years later on a different kind of business. My perception was that like most, if not all, big cities, Atlanta is a place of contrasts. It has good and bad, rich and poor, educated and not ... - juliaa
Did you feel sympathy for Robert despite everything? Did your feelings about him change over the course of the novel?
I did not feel sympathy for Robert. His troubles were all of his own making. He needed to be more honorable in his actions early on. - djcminor
Have you ever experienced a tragic event that made you behave in ways that were out of character for you, such as the way Robert behaves after the crash?
In hindsight, I'm not sure that what I considered "tragedies" at the time, were really tragedies at all. During my most profound moments of sadness during loss, i mourned for what I didn't do when I had the opportunity or what I didn't have in a ... - acstrine
Have you ever misjudged or underestimated someone the way that Anastasia misjudged Genie?
I think we have all misjudged people, but as the others commented, not to this extreme. I still have my childhood friend. We were friends from the time we were 4 years old. While in therapy a few years ago I realized throughout our children she had ... - Maggie
An Indie Next List Pick
An Amazon Editors' Pick for Summer Fiction
One of iBooks "Summer's Most Anticipated Books"
Belletrist Book Club's June Book of the Month
A New York Times Book Review "New & Noteworthy" Selection
An O, the Oprah Magazine "Top Book of Summer"
A Town & Country "Best Book to Read This June"
A Southern Living "Best New Book of Summer"
A Bitter Southerner "Upcoming Southern Novel We Can't Wait to Read"
A Refinery29 "Quick Beach Read Practically Written For Weekend Getaways"
A Globe and Mail "Coolest Book of the Season"
A Publisher's Lunch "Highly Anticipated" Title
"Captivating...[Pittard] brings her kaleidoscopic perspective to a catastrophe on an epic scale...With her keen eye for social markers and a deft weave of intersecting storylines, Pittard exposes social fissures and tensions over race and class, and how power and privilege play out in the shadows of grief." - Los Angeles Times
"Pittard's novel combines a sense of personal loss and turmoil with greater societal change as the civil rights movement arrives at its peak." - New York Times Book Review
"Pittard's earlier novels [...] established her as a formidable writer. The prose in Visible Empire [...] remains assured, polished, readable, and she renders a 1962 Atlanta that is vivid and just-enough interconnected. Ultimately, Pittard shoulders the burden of history with responsibility and resolve, and a brave imagination." - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"On June 3, 1962, a flight carrying more than 100 of Atlanta's wealthiest residents crashed on takeoff from Paris. Pittard's kaleidoscopic novel, a fictionalized account of that disaster and its aftermath, illuminates the personal and communal grief (and, in some cases, wicked delight) of those left behind." - O, the Oprah Magazine, "Top Books of Summer"
"The writing throughout is masterful, bringing this turbulent time in local history to living, breathing life. A triumph." - Toronto Star
"Beautiful…In Pittard's masterful hands, the intricately woven plots and personalities that make up Visible Empire are relatable and corporeal...Pittard's command of voice is so dexterous and adroit…it takes an author of [her] caliber, finesse and nuance to articulate such a complicated place and time as Atlanta in the 1960s." - ArtsATL
"In 1962, Air France Flight 007 crashed upon takeoff and all 122 passengers - a group of prominent Atlanta citizens taking an inaugural jaunt on a route from Paris to Georgia - died. In this, the latest novel from Listen to Me author Hannah Pittard, that real-life crash kicks off a fictional series of events that changes a city and its people forever." - Town & Country
"Pittard's excellent novel fictionalizes the tragic true event that changed the lives of so many Atlantans." - Refinery29
"With the captivating Visible Empire, [Pittard] brings her kaleidoscopic perspective to a catastrophe on an epic scale...With her keen eye for social markers and a deft weave of intersecting storylines, Pittard exposes social fissures and tensions over race and class, and how power and privilege play out in the shadows of grief." - National Book Review
"Remarkable…There's a really surprising range in the characters' experiences and in what [Pittard] explores…Well-researched and deeply considered." - BookRiot, "All the Books"
"Visible Empire has made several best-of-summer-reads lists, but it's more than a cottage companion. Its theme alone - that staggering chaos can serve to bring clarity to life, that the least of us can find our path again - makes it a read to be remembered and shared." - Winnipeg Free Press
"Based on the true story of Air France flight 007 – which crashed after takeoff in Paris en route to Atlanta in 1962 – Visible Empire is a tensely wound novel that follows the shock waves of this forgotten air disaster across a hot, humid summer. The plane was a charter, chock full of Georgia's biggest names in the arts, the manifest of the fallen a who's who list in Atlanta society. Grief rises like a miasma over Hannah Pittard's fourth novel, but it's also a love story of sorts, centred around newspaperman Robert and his estranged wife Lily, unexpectedly left penniless after the death of her wealthy parents in the crash." - Globe and Mail, "46 Coolest Books to Read this Summer"
"Atlanta native Pittard fills the novel with historical details, local points of reference, and distinct examinations of race and class...making it an evocative and discussion-worthy choice for readers who appreciate vivid settings." - Booklist
"Visible Empire starts out as an examination of a mass tragedy and slowly morphs into something more intimate and revelatory. Hannah Pittard's novel is a deeply resonant portrait of individuals - and a city - in the throes of grief, and on the cusp of momentous change." - Tom Perrotta, author of Mrs. Fletcher and Little Children
"Hannah Pittard is fast becoming one of the best writers of her generation, fusing the best aspects of literary and commercial fiction. Read her now, and thank me later." - Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
This information about Visible Empire was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Joe Wigdahl
Hannah Pittard is the author of four novels and a forthcoming memoir. Her books have been recommended by the New York Times; Chicago Tribune; O, The Oprah Magazine; Time; The Guardian; The Washington Post; Belletrist; Powell's Indie Subscription Club; The Indie Next List; and the Signed First Edition Club at Harvard Bookstore. She is a winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a Macdowell Colony fellow, and a graduate of Deerfield Academy, the University of Chicago, and the University of Virginia. She also spent some time at St. John's College in Annapolis. She is a professor of English at the University of Kentucky and lives in Lexington with her boyfriend and step-daughter.
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