The Violet Hour : Great Writers at the End (Hardcover)

from Wickabod

Katie Roiphe looks at death by examining in detail the end of life of several writers and artists: Susan Sontag, John Updike, Sigmund Freud, Maurice Sendak, and Dylan Thomas. And, in an epilogue, she also interviews one of my favorite writers, James Salter, shortly before his death. (It was the S...

from pomo58

In The Violet Hour Katie Roiphe looks at how people for whom communicating was an art approached their own impending deaths. This is neither a morbid book nor really a melancholy book. To use Roiphe's own words she "tried to avoid any impulse toward the lyrical...[She] wanted to look at what was ...

from lauriebrown54

"The Violet Hour" examines five (six, actually, if you include the epilogue) writers and how they faced their impending deaths. The author not only examined biographies but source materials and when possible, interviewed friends and family members. Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan ...

from bogopea

A well-researched book about how some well-known authors looked at their impending death. For most, Roiphe was able to interview intimates of the subjects or read diaries and letters that showed their thoughts on this subject. For some, we glean their thoughts and beliefs from their writings. Roi...

from Beamis12

3.5 When I was young, not that I think I am old now, I would pluck books off the shelves like candy. I had a few favorite authors but never really thought about their lives outside their words on the page. This book is about death, but it is also about their lives, their personalities, and all th...