Another lovely review of The Violet Hour from Elisabeth Atwood in BookPage :

"Don’t look for heroes or a typical love story in The Violet Hour. Hill uses sophisticated prose to convey the tone and emotions of a 20-year marriage. The rise and fall of Abe and Cassandra is complicated and cruel, yet with her evocative writing, Hill—who has an MFA from Bennington College—leaves room for redemption. Fans of authors like Sue Miller and Elizabeth Strout should take notice." 

Full BookPage Review, "Adrift after the end of things."

Today at The Paris Review Daily, I confess my private obsession with tournaments, as well as the dubious but inevitable proposition of looking for friends in fiction. The occasion? A recently completed bracket of 32 characters from literature, with the objective of selecting a favorite fantasy friend. Tournaments of this kind are always a chronicle of individual prejudice, and mine, it turned out, is for an all-night friend, a writer type and ex-pat, and a hell of a good guy.

They asked, I answered. 

Thanks to Kelsey Thomas of Bustle and Jaime Boler of Bookmagnet for giving me a chance to talk about doomed love, the tender savagery of families, Katrina, and funeral homes. 

Bustle Q&A
(July 23, 2013)

Bookmagnet Q&A 
(July 26, 2013)

For those who missed it, my reading from The Violet Hour at Politics & Prose, is now on YouTube.

The origins of The Violet Hour go all the way back to a literature class I took in college called "Doomed Love in the Western World." In recent months, it's been fun to revisit the literary tradition of bad marriage. My essay on D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Christina Stead, and the modern marriage revolution appeared last Friday in the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back 
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits 
Like a taxi throbbing waiting...
                                                                    T.S. Eliot

Well, wait no longer, because The Violet Hour is officially here! For the latest endorsement, check out page 80 of the August issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Pretty surreal to see my novel recommended as one of Ten Titles to Pick Up Now:

"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.”

Five days from publication and reviews are starting to turn up. I want to be a Jill Lepore who doesn't read my own reviews, but this is all still so new and strange that I just can't help myself.

Today in the Bookmarked column at Philly.com, Nathaniel Popkin offers a generous, considered reading of The Violet Hour's social and cultural themes. 

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/art-attack/Bookmarked_The_Violet_Hour.html

And over at Colorado Review, Derek Askey recommends The Violet Hour as an affecting post-mortem on a marriage. 

http://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/reviews/the-violet-hour/