The Violet Hour

Katie Roiphe’s latest offering details the deaths of five major writers: Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas and Maurice Sendak. Roiphe took the book’s title, The Violet Hour, from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” because “the phrase evokes the mood of the elusive period I am describing: melancholy, expectant, laden. It captures the…

As Katherine Hill’s polished debut novel opens, Abe and Cassandra Green have been married for more than 20 years. Their accomplished daughter, Elizabeth, is leaving for college. The family is taking an afternoon sail on Abe’s new boat, when, suddenly, Abe and Cassandra descend into a life-changing argument. Abe ends the fight by literally jumping…