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    Visible Empire
    Visible Empire
    Visible Empire
    Audiobook9 hours

    Visible Empire

    Written by Hannah Pittard

    Narrated by Robin Miles

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    From a writer who "deserves the attention of anyone in search of today's best fiction"* comes an epic novel-based on true events-of wealth, race, grief, and love, charting one sweltering summer in Atlanta that left no one unchanged (*Washington Post) It's a humid summer day when the phones begin to ring: disaster has struck. Air France Flight 007, which had been chartered to ferry home more than one hundred of Atlanta's cultural leaders following a luxurious arts-oriented tour of Europe, crashed shortly after takeoff in Paris. In one fell swoop, most of the city's wealthiest residents perished. Left behind were children, spouses, lovers, friends, and a city on the cusp of great change: the Civil Rights movement was at its peak, the hedonism of the 60s was at its doorstep. In Hannah Pittard's dazzling and most ambitious novel yet, she gives us the journeys of those who must now rebuild this place and their lives. Mayor Ivan Allen is tasked with the job of keeping the city moving forward. Nineteen-year-old Piedmont Dobbs, who had been denied admission to an integrated school, senses a moment of opportunity. Robert, a newspaper editor, must decide if he can reconnect with his beloved but estranged wife, Lily, who has learned that her wealthy parents left her penniless. Visible Empire is the story of a single sweltering summer, and of the promise and hope that remains in the wake of crisis. It's the story of a husband and wife-Robert and Lily-who don't truly come to understand each other and their love, until their city's chaos drives them to clarity.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 5, 2018
    ISBN9781501987274
    Author

    Hannah Pittard

    HANNAH PITTARD was born in Atlanta. She is the author of four novels, including Listen to Me and The Fates Will Find Their Way. Her work has appeared in the Sewanee Review, the New York Times, and other publications. She is a professor of English at the University of Kentucky, where she directs the MFA program in creative writing.

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    Reviews for Visible Empire

    3/5

    22 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      John F. Kennedy was in the White House and the whole country was living in the era of Camelot. The Civil Rights Movement was going strong although racial tensions continued to boil, often hidden, especially in Southern cities. Atlanta's upper class lived just as they always had until the shocking day that an Air France plane loaded with wealthy art patrons from their city crashed in Paris, decimating the movers and shakers of white society and opened doors for outsiders brave enough to walk through them past the smoldering wreckage of life before. Hannah Pittard uses this real life crash as the starting point for her novel, Visible Empire, about those left behind in the immediate aftermath of the tragic news.The mayor of Atlanta and his wife, a pregnant woman whose parents perished on the plane and her journalist husband, whose mistress also died that day, a young black man hoping to better himself either educationally or by whatever means necessary, and a white working class woman who takes the opportunity to impersonate the relative of a reclusive member of society all take turns narrating the novel as the days after the crash pass in a blur of heat and rising tension. The loss of so many of the city's affluent social leaders gives a sort of manic and surreal feel to the grieving city, exposing undreamed of opportunities for the suppressed, the ambitious, and the dissipated.Pittard has drawn a wealthy Atlanta that still exists in many ways and she has captured the racism that continues to stalk its streets as well but she's done it through a collection of less than likable, not always well fleshed out characters. The narrative started out strong in the immediate aftermath of the crash with the reeling disbelief of the survivors at home but veered into melodrama and chaos. She raises provocative issues of class and race, privilege and prejudice, but doesn't really get into the deep end with them, allowing the narration to turn away before it really addresses anything deeply. The community impact is clear and the personal impact is especially well explored. Perhaps there's just too much going on to allow for one story line to dominate and really matter; there's racism, classism, grief, infidelity, and more. The novel was rather oddly unemotional as it exposed the always cracked (but skillfully hidden) and now broken veneer of Atlanta's high society. And yet, despite my reservations, I didn't dislike the book. I didn't necessarily like it either. Pittard is skilled with words but maybe needs to find a little more heart, at least in this one.
    • 2/5
      Based on a true event, I was initially intrigued by the premise of the Air France airline crash and how the city would cope with the loss of so many movers and shakers. Unfortunately, the people impacted would probably have been just as messed up and the back and forth narrative didn't do much for learning a lot about them. It was provocative in the issues of race--the early 60's in Atlanta isn't a time of complete calm.
    • 4/5
      There are times when I’m reading Hannah Pittard’s work that I am enthralled. I’m pulled into the language, the atmosphere, and the emotion. I’m feeling everything and it’s unrelenting. During these moments, the characters are alive. The story becomes all that matters. There’s no escape. And I’m glad, because regardless of how difficult the subject matter is, the fact is, I’m feeling something strong, and that’s what I want out of a good book: to feel. I want the rage and the sorrow unabated (though it must be genuine and true to the story).Then there are times when I’m reading Pittard’s work and I feel nothing. The language is stilted. The characters become caricatures of their former selves. And the story drowns in melodrama.I like to think of any artist as they are at their best. Every artist has made a stinker or two, or ten. No artist is consistently amazing. At her best, Pittard is brilliant, and I continue to sing her praises. Hannah Pittard is a truly fabulous writer. The difference between her and many of the other authors I admire, however, is that Pittard doesn’t have that one stellar work, nor does she have those which are entirely without merit. Each and every one of her books shows both the artist’s greatest skills and her weaknesses. Visible Empire is perhaps the best example of this, as it swings most widely from one extreme to the other.Visible Empire purports to be a novel about the 1962 Air France flight that crashed during take-off, killing all 122 passengers. At the time, it was the deadliest single-aircraft disaster. Most of the passengers were from Atlanta's upper society and were patrons of the Arts. But the crash is only the catalyst for the rest of the novel. Visible Empire is more about those left behind, a commentary on grief, affluence, and race. Primarily, the narrative focuses on four or five characters, though others are included as needed to fill in the gaps. Some of these stories work together and build upon one another; others don't seem to add much, but do provide a little more variety.In particular, the first couple hundred pages of Visible Empire are really the strongest. Pittard's description of the crash itself and of the character's in the first stages of grief were phenomenal. But by the end, the story really dips into made-for-tv melodrama. At the conclusion, I didn't feel all the pieces connected in a satisfying manner.If you can look past these flaws, I think Pittard is a wonderful author who has so much to offer. And maybe I shouldn't think of them as flaws; perhaps this is exactly how Pittard intends to write. The problem with this style is that I think it must be tough to find the right audience: it's too literary for the Hallmark crowd, too sensationalized for the New York Times crowd. Whatever side of the aisle Pittard eventually sits in, I'll keep turning to her work, looking for those moments of brilliance.
    • 2/5
      There have been several instances where tragedy has struck a town in the form of a plane crash killing significant numbers of residents, Atlanta in 1962 being just one. The event is used as the source of the tale, which follows the literary theme that from tragedy, loss, and adversity come rebirth and positive revitalization. The story relates specific survivors responses, chapter by chapter, their reactions to the event, and subsequent coping and finally how they possibly will move beyond their loss, continuing life. It moves along quickly, jumping to a different character about the time interest wanes. None of the characters are, in my opinion, sympathetic; rather of a social and economic strata that makes relating to them difficult. This is interspersed with the introduction of the then current civil-rights issues and their effects on the characters. In short, an interesting read, not profound, moves along well, possibly written as a script for television drama.