The Violet Hour: A Novel Paperback – August 12, 2014

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Review “Rewarding...Assured...as with the family members in Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You...Elizabeth's relatives are not always well-behaved...[but] their petty grievances are as fun as real grief is devastating. Thanks to Hill’s assured voice, the Fabricants’ occasional flashes of harmony and humor will leave you with the charmed feeling of having seen a rainbow over the Beltway.” (Elisabeth Egan The Washington Post Book World)“A gripping debut…” (Sue Corbett People)“A bittersweet tale of breakup and forgiveness, this debut novel begins at the end of a marriage and journeys back through time to explore why the relationship slowly frayed.” (Abbe Wright O, the Oprah magazine)“The Violet Hour succeeds.…The story of this family—at once alien and familiar, pitiable and impressive—is rendered with candor and economy.” (Derek Askey Colorado Review)“Hill is particularly capable as a manufacturer of taut, precise imagery, which she most effectively unleashes here as the book’s first plot point takes its turn….Hill is most persuasive as a writer when she defines and explores relentless internal conflicts and divisions.…The Violet Hour is filled with controlled and yet expansive prose.” (Nathaniel Popkin Philadelphia Inquirer)“In Hill’s debut, members of a troubled family converge to celebrate a milestone, with unexpected results.…Hill has produced an unusual retrospective of a family torn apart by divorce and infidelity and so keenly affected by the immediate events in their lives that they are only barely aware of what’s transpiring around them.…[A] disturbing story but one that offers a glimmer of hope.” (Kirkus Reviews)“Hill handles the intimacy of family ties with care and tenderness. Readers who enjoyed Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom will relate as Hill’s characters similarly and systematically unravel from each other.” (Booklist)“Katherine Hill’s The Violet Hour reminds us that in every family mistakes are made—and redemption is possible. A wise, engrossing novel of familial love, betrayal, and forgiveness.” (Kate Walbert, author of A Short History of Women)"Like Sue Miller and Alice Hoffman, Katherine Hill limns the commonplace dreams and sorrows of the restless middle class. Ranging from post-grad San Francisco in the '70s to post-9/11 Manhattan, The Violet Hour is an old-fashioned family romance." (Stewart O’Nan, author of Last Night at the Lobster and Emily, Alone)“The Violet Hour is an altogether entrancing novel. Katherine Hill’s fresh, intelligent voice and extraordinary skill take an age-old theme—three generations of an unhappy family—and make it original, poignant and luminous. I was sorry when their story ended!” (Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Disturbances in the Field and Two-Part Inventions) Read more About the Author Katherine Hill is a graduate of Yale University and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her writing has been published by AGNI, The Believer, Bookforum, Colorado Review, The Common, n+1, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is an assistant editor at Barrelhouse,and lives with her husband in Princeton, New Jersey. Read more See all Editorial Reviews