The Violet Hour

The last days of five great thinkers, writers and artists - as they come to terms with the reality of approaching death

Katie Roiphe's extraordinary book is filled with intimate and surprising revelations. Susan Sontag, consummate public intellectual, finds her rational thinking tested during her third bout with cancer. Seventy-six year old John Updike's response to a fatal diagnosis is to begin a poem. Dylan Thomas's fatal collapse on the floor of a Greenwich Village tavern is preceded by a fortnight of almost suicidal excess. Sigmund Freud understands his hastening decline. Maurice Sendak shows his lifelong obsession with death in his beloved books.

THE VIOLET HOUR - urgent and unsentimental - helps us to be less afraid in the face of death.

“In this elegant and beautifully written set of elegies, Katie Roiphe looks death squarely in the face, describing how people evanesce, how others lose them, how they lose themselves, how writing is a means to negotiate for immortality. This courageous, generous, intimate book is suffused with affection, and therefore provides comfort even when its topic is the loneliness that inheres in finality”

Her technique is never anything less than insightful . . . on every page, she turns up something interesting, lets in some astonishing shaft of light. Her writing is elegant, cool, unforgettable - Observer

Engrossing . . . Such an immersive book is testament to her remarkable literary skills. This is an immensely sympathetic and satisfying read - Sunday Times

Roiphe is an acute reader and listener with antennae tuned to pick up every nuance, and to penetrate the meaning behind meaning - Daily Mail

Each essay reads like an intelligently speculative biography with the boring bits left out - Daily Telegraph

Katie Roiphe is an important voice in non-fiction. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, Harper's and The New Yorker. She has also written widely for the UK press.

The last days of five great thinkers, writers and artists - as they come to terms with the reality of approaching death Katie Roiphe's extraordinary book is filled with intimate and surprising revelations. Susan Sontag, consummate public intellectual, finds her rational thinking tested during her third bout with cancer. Seventy-six year old John Updike's response to a fatal diagnosis is to begin a poem. Dylan Thomas's fatal collapse on the floor of a Greenwich Village tavern is preceded by a fortnight of almost suicidal excess. Sigmund Freud understands his hastening decline. Maurice Sendak shows his lifelong obsession with death in his beloved books. The Violet Hour - urgent and unsentimental - helps us to be less afraid in the face of death. 'Engrossing . . . Such an immersive book is testament to her remarkable literary skills. This is an immensely sympathetic and satisfying read' Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times 'Roiphe is an acute reader and listener with antennae tuned to pick up every nuance, and to penetrate the meaning behind meaning' Craig Brown, Daily Mail 'Elegant . . . courageous, generous, intimate' Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree

The last days of five great thinkers, writers and artists - as they come to terms with the reality of approaching deathKatie Roiphe's extraordinary book is filled with intimate and surprising revelations. Susan Sontag, consummate public intellectual, finds her rational thinking tested during her third bout with cancer. Seventy-six year old John Updike's response to a fatal diagnosis is to begin a poem. Dylan Thomas's fatal collapse on the floor of a Greenwich Village tavern is preceded by a fortnight of almost suicidal excess. Sigmund Freud understands his hastening decline. Maurice Sendak shows his lifelong obsession with death in his beloved books. THE VIOLET HOUR - urgent and unsentimental - helps us to be less afraid in the face of death.

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