"Captivating...[Pittard] brings her kaleidoscopic perspective to a catastrophe on an epic scale...With her keen eye for social markers and a deft weave of intersecting storylines, Pittard exposes social fissures and tensions over race and class, and how power and privilege play out in the shadows of grief." — Los Angeles Times
"Pittard's novel combines a sense of personal loss and turmoil with greater societal change as the civil rights movement arrives at its peak." — New York Times Book Review
"Pittard's earlier novels...established her as a formidable writer. The prose in Visible Empire...remains assured, polished, readable, and she renders a 1962 Atlanta that is vivid and just-enough interconnected. Ultimately, Pittard shoulders the burden of history with responsibility and resolve, and a brave imagination." — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"On June 3, 1962, a flight carrying more than 100 of Atlanta's wealthiest residents crashed on takeoff from Paris. Pittard's kaleidoscopic novel, a fictionalized account of that disaster and its aftermath, illuminates the personal and communal grief (and, in some cases, wicked delight) of those left behind." — O, the Oprah Magazine
"In 1962, Air France Flight 007 crashed upon takeoff and all 122 passengers--a group of prominent Atlanta citizens taking an inaugural jaunt on a route from Paris to Georgia--died. In this, the latest novel from Listen to Me author Hannah Pittard, that real-life crash kicks off a fictional series of events that changes a city and its people forever." — Town & Country
"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
"Visible Empire starts out as an examination of a mass tragedy and slowly morphs into something more intimate and revelatory. Hannah Pittard's novel is a deeply resonant portrait of individuals--and a city--in the throes of grief, and on the cusp of momentous change." — Tom Perotta