Lots of Soap Opera vibes which I didn't really expect. I thought this would be a much more serious look at how this tragedy affected the families and the city where it took place.

An OK story that may work better as a TV Series than it does on paper.

Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard was an interesting novel blending true historical events with its fictional implications. Examining social vices and dysfunction, this book was a bit confusing, yet I appreciated its honesty. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy, all opinions are my own.

In my role as English Teacher, I love being able to spend time reviewing books for our school library which I use to help the students make great picks when they visit us as well as running a library junior and senior book group where we meet every week and share the books we love and talk about what makes a great read. This is certainly a book that I'd be happy to display at the front as one of my monthly 'top picks' which often transform into 'most borrowed' between students and staff. It's a great read and ties in with my ethos of wishing to assemble a diverse, modern and thought-provoking range of books that will inspire and deepen a love of reading in our students of all ages. This book answers this brief in spade! It has s fresh and original voice and asks the readers to think whilst hooking them with a compelling storyline and strong characters It is certainly a book that I've thought about a lot after finishing it and I've also considered how we could use some of its paragraphs in supporting and inspiring creative writing in the school through the writers' circle that we run. This is a book that I shall certainly recommend we purchase and look forward to hearing how much the staff and students enjoy this memorable and thought-provoking read.

The city of Atlanta is devastated by a terrible disaster that affects numerous wealthy and influential families. The stories that come out of this disaster are compelling, heart-breaking and will keep readers reading well into the night.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get into this title. It just wasn't a good fit for me. Thanks so much for the opportunity to read this title. I will not be posting a review online, in order not to skew the ratings.

Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard is a story set around an actual 1962 plane crash in which over 100 of the Atlanta elite perished. However, the crash is the back drop, but then the book veers off into individual narratives of some who remained behind. At the heart of it, this book was not what I expected and not about what I expected. I might have enjoyed it more had the historical connection not been drawn.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2019/01/visible-empire.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

This seemed to take the long way around to get to being even part of the story that was detailed on the fly leaf. 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.

A beautifully written, hard-to-classify book, about a moment in time in Atlanta when the city suffered an unspeakable loss.

It is 1962, and things are changing socially, culturally, and politically, and then, thousands of miles away in Paris, a plane falls from the sky. The connection between this tragedy and the lives of several disparate but interconnected people, white and Black, wealthy and poor. Hannah Pittard has a unique voice that reminds me of William Makepeace Thackeray, but with a modern flair. It’s a mix of satire and dead-serious that’s hard to define or pigeonhole. But I liked it; I liked it a lot.

There were also some stunningly insightful moments, like when the author got into the head of Peidmont, a young Black man who has his hope that he is destined for great things dampened. Pittard’s descriptions of how he views race and race relations were astute for someone who (forgive me for saying this) is about as far removed from a young Black man in a segregated world as a hippo is from a gazelle. I respect this author’s skill, but also her empathy in her portrayal of this character.

Similarly, she portrayed an aging lesbian suddenly deprived of her financial security, a n’er do well playboy, an errant husband and a beautiful young wannabe actress with just as much care. Hannah Pittard is not a writer who was on my radar but she is now. Highly recommended for lovers of literary fiction.

Set against the backdrop of the Orly plane crash disaster, Pittard explores racial relations and marriage in 1960s Atlanta. VISIBLE EMPIRE traces the "orphans" of those art patrons that were killed in the crash with skill and beauty. The characters are interesting and believable and Pittard captures the era perfectly. If you liked THE HELP, you will greatly enjoy VISIBLE EMPIRE.

This book was always going to be right up my alley, as an Atlantan who is interested in our city's history. Like most Atlantans these days, I did not grow up here, so I didn't grow up learning about the city's history in school. In fact, I first heard about this plane crash in May while doing research for a story at the Swan House. I found it utterly fascinating, and with all historical fiction, it left me wondering which parts are absolutely true and which parts were heavily embellished. There were a ton of characters, which obviously I can't fully blame on the author since she didn't invent them, but that did make it tough to keep everyone straight sometimes. I cared a lot more for Lily, Robert and Piedmont's story than I did about Genie and Anastasia and the damn painting.

I know many people have mixed feelings about fiction based on real life events, but I’m a fan! In Visible Empire, the Orly plane crash is the big event that ties lots of disparate people and perspectives together (and the opening chapters recounting the crash are riveting). The overall book is more a portrait of Atlanta in the 1960’s from all these different perspectives (the Mayor’s wife, family of the crash victims, an African American teenager that has a chance encounter with a member of Atlanta’s elite, and an ambitious young woman) than about the plane crash itself. Pittard gives us a somewhat gossipy take on the crash’s impact on Atlanta’s elite and those who come in contact with them…and her social commentary is excellent. I felt like this would be the book that Dominick Dunne (former Vanity Fair columnist and author of “fictional” novels about real life crimes involving the wealthy) could have written about the crash…and it reminded me of a less epic A Man in Full (by Tom Wolfe). But, I did miss the Afterward that normally accompanies these types of books that lays out where the author stayed true to real life and where she took liberties for the sake of the story.

I was REALLY looking forward to reading Hannah Pittard”s new book Invisible Empire. Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley, I received a copy in exchange for this honest review.

The book is based on the real-life crash of an Air France flight seconds into takeoff from Orly airport in Paris in 1962. 130 people died, and this backstory provides an amazing number of potential stories of those on the flight as well as their families, friends, loved ones, etc. The characters in the book are 99% fictional (I looked it up, thinking this might be “faction.” )

During the early 60s, Atlanta was “in the midst of the Camelot era,” yet as a Southern city it was deeply involved in racial hatred and civil rights struggles. And although I didn’t think of the meaning of the title until it was pointed out to me (duh!), once I realized that the full title of the Klan is “The Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” I admit I was dreading something horrible happening to one of the African-American characters who figure prominently in the story. No spoilers here…

The victims of the crash included many of the city’s movers and shakers, as it was a chartered tour put on by and for art lovers of Atlanta. TBH, after reading the promotional material, I was expecting more of a story that covered the social, political and moral events of the 60s. It isn’t that: it is more a book that has “made-for-TV-movie” written all over it. Kind of a soap opera, wrapped in fascinating time and place. Doesn’t make it bad – it just was way less than I expected. Recognizing this may be due to my own unrealistic expectations, I give it three stars. (The cover deserves its own star: it's awesome)

This book offers gritty insight into dynamics of race and gender in the South. Set in the early 1960s, the book uses the famous plane crash of Atlantan socialites as a backdrop. Told from rotating character/plot points, the book deftly ties seemingly unrelated storylines together. I appreciated the writing skill needed to interact with these complex storylines.

This book was not at all what I expected. I've read books by Hannah Pittard before and enjoyed them but I admit I found this one slow going. The writing was good, and if she sought to make the characters all mostly unappealing, she achieved her goal. It was just ok for me.

As a fan of previous Hannah Pittard novels, I was excited to try her latest endeavor: a historical fiction novel about an actual plane crash that occurred in 1962 - a flight from France to Atlanta, that included many of the movers of shakers of the 1960s arts and entertainment world, and the aftermath of crash through the stories of those left behind. Pittard's writing is beautiful, as always, which is the only thing that kept me going through this novel; while I certainly appreciated all of the historical references, including a character who is struggling with the racial tension and white privilege of the South, I think I was expecting something different. Visible Empire is a very slow burn; it will be great for those who can disregard the plane crash and focus on a different narrative.

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 6/3/18

This was a DNF for me. I tried multiple times and even made it 44% of the Book. The way the story was laid out jumped a bit much. Also, the development that far into the book was little.

As a resident of Atlanta, I enjoy reading about my city. The aftermath of the Orly plane crash of 1962 is well-drawn in Elizabeth Masser’s Novel The Swan House, which, I think is a far better treatment of the topic of the crash, and of painting the city itself.

Visible Empire is a sprawling novel following several individuals in 1962 Atlanta following the crash of an Air France flight bearing 120 people, most of the city’s wealthy upper-crust.

Newspaper reporter Robert and his young wife Lily are expecting their first child. The crash throws their lives into a tailspin: Robert must confront his unfaithfulness and its aftermath, and Lily is left to pick up the pieces after the death of her parents.

Piedmont Dobbs is an African-American high school student whose mother has dreamed of the opportunity for him to attend a white school. He is thrust in the middle of the roiling racial tensions and the drama and grief of those left picking up the pieces after the crash.

Anastasia is a young orphan with striking good looks. She has reinvented herself as a child of one of Atlanta’s wealthy travelers to France. The crash threatens to unravel her carefully crafted false identity.

Visible Empire is told in various points of view: Robert, Lily, Piedmont, Anastasia, and brief glances into the life of Ivan, the mayor, and his wife, Lulu. Their storylines intersect, sometimes directly, and sometimes in more indirect ways.

Although it was beautifully written and richly evocative of 1960s Atlanta with all its excess of the wealthy and tensions threatening to erupt, the novel felt a little empty to me. Several of the characters are extremely unlikeable, and I found myself frustrated and angry with them for much of the book. Several details are left unresolved at the book’s conclusion.

I can appreciate that this book is well-written and lovely, even if it wasn’t for me. For fans of literary fiction, like Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, this would be an excellent read to bring on a plane or while you relax by the pool.

Somehow the premise of this book, that cover and especially the fact that it's based on true events doesn't match its quality of writing.

I really wanted to like it. I kept pushing it back, savoring it for later. But then when I finally got to it...I couldn't even get into it.

I think there are people out there who like these kinds of books - very documentary-like but told in draggish story manner. Penny Vincenzi's books come to mind, for example. But for those of us who see that synopsis and expect some sort of thrill, mystery and maybe even slightly upmarket literary element, it falls flat, unfortunately.

Thank you NetGalley for this copy in exchange for my honest review.