PositiveArtsatlArticulating the grief of an entire community of people would be a challenge for any author, but Pittard does a beautiful job of contextualizing the disaster, which unfolds within the context of another social tragedy of its time ... Rather than merely telling the story of the grief of Atlanta’s affluent white community, with Visible Empire, Pittard charges herself with tackling difficult subjects like race, resistance and morality, in addition to grief, in her fictional reinterpretation of these real-life disasters. Somehow, she manages in 271 pages to effortlessly command the distinct voices of a pregnant, suddenly orphaned wife recently abandoned by her adulterous husband, his deceased mistress, a friend of the adulterous husband who inherited a fortune because of the crash, his closeted lesbian aunt, an aspiring actress and compulsive liar and a young black runaway named Piedmont who somehow gets caught up in their privileged web ... In Pittard’s masterful hands, the intricately woven plots and personalities that make up Visible Empire are relatable and corporeal. The most vivid of her characters are her female protagonists, especially Lily, the pregnant wife, who finds herself not only orphaned and abandoned, but on the brink of motherhood and in financial shambles.
