Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Visible Empire; Hannah Pittard

Visible Empire; Hannah Pittard
Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt - 2018

The Visible Empire is a work of fiction that was inspired by the Air France at Orly crash of 1962, when a Boeing 707 leaving Paris crashes shortly after takeoff.  In this crash over 100 prominent individuals, white elites, from Atlanta, who were part of a museum tour group were killed.  What follows is the backstory of some who were killed and of those individuals they left behind.

I had mixed feelings about this book, it had a book to movie feel about it. The story is told by a series of alternating characters. I thought there were too many characters and too little detail about some of them.  This book would make a great choice for book groups as there is plenty to discuss. Race and  civil rights issues in the 1960s South, will evoke emotions from some readers, a time when lynching was still occurring. I was not surprised that the flawed characters and white privilege allowed individuals to make poor life choices without suffering any consequences. There was only one character I really cared anything about, Piedmont was a young black man whose life changes unexpectedly.

Rating - 3.5/5 stars

12 comments:

  1. I would get lost with all those alternating characters.

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  2. I've been on the fence about this one but now I think I'll skip it.

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    1. Too many books, too little time. I committed to this one through Vine.

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  3. As soon as you said the chapters are told by different characters, I thought, how can so many people tell their version of the story?!

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    1. I know, I think I read another book with that type of set up but, I can't remember the name. Also about a plane crash.

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  4. Too much in one story can be dufficult to keep track.

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  5. Not sure I'll get to this, but the cover makes me want to dive in!

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  6. I started the audio of this but didn't finish it.

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  7. I am not much of an airplane crash fiction person myself.

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