Blue Hours
A Novel
by Daphne Kalotay
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Pub Date 15 Jul 2019 | Archive Date 10 Dec 2019
Northwestern University Press | TriQuarterly
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Description
A mystery linking Manhattan circa 1991 to northeastern Afghanistan in 2012, Blue Hours tells of a life-changing friendship between two memorable heroines. When we first meet Mim, she is a recent college graduate who has disavowed her working-class roots to befriend Kyra, a dancer and daughter of privilege, until calamity causes their estrangement. Twenty years later, Kyra has gone missing from her NGO's headquarters in Jalalabad, and Mim—now a recluse in rural New England—embarks on a mid-life journey to find her.
Anchored by an uninvited voyage into an extraordinary place, with a love story at its core, Blue Hours combines the adventure and moral complexity of Lillian Hellman's Julia and Ann Patchett's State of Wonder to tell a global story at an intimate level. In its ethical provocations, Blue Hours becomes an unconventional page-turner, confronting America's role in the conflicted, interconnected world.
Daphne Kalotay is the author of Calamity and Other Stories, which was short listed for the 2005 Story Prize. Her debut novel, Russian Winter, won the 2011 Writers’ League of Texas Fiction Prize, made the long list for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, was nominated for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and has been published in twenty-three foreign editions. Her second novel, Sight Reading, was a Boston Globe bestseller, a finalist for the 2014 Paterson Fiction Prize, and winner of the 2014 New England Society Book Award in Fiction. She has received fellowships from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation, MacDowell, and Yaddo.
A Note From the Publisher
Daphne Kalotay lives in Boston and teaches at Princeton. She is available for book talks and signings at libraries and bookstores in either location or in between.
Advance Praise
“Only a book this good could move so well from the intensities of youth to the disasters of the global world—love’s joys and miscalculations from the East Village to Afghanistan. Beautifully written, Blue Hours did that rarest of things, it took me places I never expected to go.” —Joan Silber, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Improvement
"Part heroic quest, part social x-ray, part sui generis meditation on identity, Daphne Kalotay's Blue Hours is a book that lodges, in the best sense, in the mind." —John Wray, author of Godsend
“Blue Hours is a gripping adventure story set in modern Afghanistan and a compelling tale of a heartbreaking love triangle. It is also a lyrical exploration of the intensely personal consequences of national political decisions, of actions that affect who and what we are as Americans. This is an important novel for our time.” —Rishi Reddi, author of Karma and Other Stories
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780810140561 |
| PRICE | US$22.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 312 |
Featured Reviews
Educator 547315
Blue Hours reads well. The characters and settings keep the pace moving along nicely. The NYC scenes bring the early narrative to life while the Afghan section drags on a bit long, maybe, but, the captivation remains and the need to move through the novel keeps the reader "in". The intriguing title unveils its connection and the reader finds the resolution fitting.
Ali T, Reviewer
Look out for this nuanced story in July, 2019. From established American author, Daphne Kalotay this is a beautifully-written and thoughtful novel about guilt and self-knowledge set in the USA and in Afghanistan. From small beginnings where recent graduates take on menial jobs and experiment in relationships, the story grows to encompass love, war and bravery, Both moving and (particularly in the latter half) a page turner.
Rebecca L, Reviewer
A fascinating story first set in New York City, moving into Afghanistan, and then to rural upstate New York. The characters have unique personalities, some quarks are humorous, some superficial, some deeper than the ocean. The relationships between the characters really make the book interesting.
Laura H, Reviewer
Writing: 4 Plot: 3 Characters: 3
How far would you go for a friend? Successful author Mim Woodruff faces this question when a call reveals that a humanitarian aid worker in Afghanistan has gone missing. Once an intensely close friend, Mim has not spoken to Kyra in twenty years.
The novel is composed of two major parts: the first takes place in Manhattan twenty years before the phone call. Mim and Kyra, fresh out of school, finding their way in the world. Kyra stylish, pushing away the wealth that is her birthright, and possessed of a deep, almost painful, awareness of the distress around her; Mim, dreaming of being a writer but instead folding sweaters at Benetton, observing the world around her but always at a remove. A youthful but intense love affair, a shattering experience, and an almost surgical split lays the foundation for events twenty years later.
Part two follows the journey Mim takes into ever-more remote Afghanistan in the search for the missing Kyra. Beautiful descriptions of the physical environment and the people. Well-researched portrayals of the organization of and interplay between the various factions, the military, the aid organizations, and those in remote villages. Stunning portraits of the individuals involved and those they avoid, warily approach, or engage.
The story feels real — messy, inescapable, and somewhat hopeless — and yet giving up really can’t be an option. The tone is emotionally removed, like our central character. While I found the detail and depth of the story engaging, I did not resonate with the characters at all — in fact I really didn’t like Mim very much. As an author describing her observations from an objective viewpoint, she works; As an individual going through deeply personal experiences, not so much. Possibly this says more about me than her!
Ashleigh A, Educator
A great and thrilling tale, which leads you through a path of darkness. Excellently crafted, with twists and turns that will keep your turning pages through the night.
Kaye W, Reviewer
Blue Hours displays Daphne Kalotay's astonishing writing talent. From the first sentence ("We were college graduates, blase about it, our diplomas rolled into tubes"), I was fully engaged. The insight, word play and plotting carried me through Part I, The Island, where a fiercely intimate friendship is formed between two young women in Manhattan; and Part II, The Desert, where one of those women goes to the far reaches of Afghanistan when the other is reported missing there.
Reading it was such a lovely experience, but Part III, The World, let me down. It felt rushed and even less personal than the the first 90% of the book -- where I hadn't minded the detachment of Mim, the narrator. After all, she had the textbook childhood for an attachment disorder, and her first close relationship (with Kyra, a dancer) is suddenly terminated.
Until that phone call that lets her know Kyra has disappeared on an aid mission. Mim then puts her life on hold and her marriage in jeopardy to trek to the Afghan-Pakistan border in search of her lost (in many senses) friend.
The beauty of this book is in the deft capture of subtle U.S. class distinctions, of geopolitical realities with absolutely no partisan tropes, and of Kalotay's descriptive power to bring a scene to vivid life. It is worth reading even if one reader wished for something more complete at the finish.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advance readers copy.
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