Visible Empire - by Hannah Pittard (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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

"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

"In the emotional aftermath of the June 1962 Paris plane crash that killed 120 of Atlanta's leading citizens, a chorus of grieving survivors tell tales of love and loss, even as their city -- often divided by class and race -- seeks to cope with change and uncertainty." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"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 Perotta

About the Author