Publishers Weekly
02/20/2023
Harrison’s debut chronicles a mixed race woman’s harrowing journey through contemporary American motherhood. The unnamed narrator, who is Black and Japanese, deals with a litany of tragedies. When she’s 22, most of her family is killed in a car accident. She pursues a career in photography, and at 28 she marries Asher, a Jewish man who runs a clothing boutique. Though Asher wants to start a family, two miscarriages sour the narrator on the idea of having children. Her grief is exacerbated when Noah, a student in her photography class, is shot by the police, and she feels responsible because the shooting happened while her class was meant to be in session—she’d canceled it for a fertility appointment. As she surreptitiously visits Noah in the hospital, she discovers she’s pregnant, and her fear of having another miscarriage blends with a dueling worry of bringing a child into a world rife with police violence. In lyrical language, Harrison skillfully explores the complex tensions that gnaw at the expectant mother (“We hold our breath. All the way to the first, second, and third sonograms; all the way through sixteen weeks, we hold our breath”) and offers an intimate view of the couple’s pain. This signals the arrival of a brave new writer. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Vulture, A Best Book of the Year
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One of Electric Literature's Books by Women of Color to Read This Year
A Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of the Year
Zibby's Mag, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Goodreads, A Buzziest Debut Novel of the Year
"Full of musings, debate, anger, distress and yet, ultimately, hope, Blue Hour is incredibly powerful." —Zibby Owens, Good Morning America
"Gasp-worthy . . . How did Harrison achieve this spectacular feat of emotional withholding while also making readers feel so much?" —J. Howard Rosier, Vulture
"This assured and highly interior novel unfolds in a series of short paragraphs, emotionally charged scenes, and poetic fragments . . . The intimacy of the narration paired with Harrison’s lyrical prose gives it a startling immediacy—everything feels like it’s happening all at once. It’s an urgent, heartbreaking, and profound meditation on motherhood, art-making, uncertainty, the ongoing violence of American racism and police brutality, and the courage it takes to choose the future.” —Laura Sackton, BuzzFeed
"With every word, Blue Hour cautions against holding back: from being seen, heard and understood; from persevering in spite of forces that would see you destroyed; and from expressing love on every possible occasion, before your chances run out." —Gianni Washington, Chicago Review of Books
"In lyrical language, Harrison skillfully explores the complex tensions that gnaw at the expectant mother [...] and offers an intimate view of the couple’s pain. This signals the arrival of a brave new writer." —Publishers Weekly
"Harrison’s writing is unflinching throughout, but the depictions of miscarriage and infertility—and their effect on a marriage—are particularly haunting . . . In the vein of Jenny Offill and Raven Leilani, Harrison’s debut offers an intimate slice-of-life portrait with no easy questions or answers. A poetic novel that dances on the edge of hope and despair." —Kirkus Reviews
"In a world full of demands and distractions, Blue Hour asks us to pause and sit with our grief. Challenging, intimate, and relevant, this novel is a meditation on the boundaries of hope." —Osa Atoe, author of Shotgun Seamstress
"Blue Hour is a pulsing and powerful novel about grief, motherhood, storytelling, and self. At once ragged, raw, and transcendent, Harrison's novel marries the universality of maternal love and loss with the specificity of mothering Black and biracial children in contemporary America. A short, beautiful, intensely present work of art." —Lydia Kielsing, author of The Golden State
"Blue Hour is a poetic and feverish debut, a story that laces together the struggles of marriage and motherhood, art and artist, race and violence in America into a powerful web, much bigger and stronger than its slender spine would suggest. If you loved Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill, the work of Rachel Cusk, or Luster by Raven Leilani, this book is for you." —Ashley Warlick, author of The Arrangement
"An exquisite melancholic portrait of motherhood and marriage for a biracial woman in America. Tiffany Clarke Harrison writes about miscarriage with fleshy, beating rawness leaving us painfully undone, and beautifully seen. Blue Hour has captured the dark question of modern motherhood amid police brutality and racism in America—do we really want to bring kids into this? There is no other book I’d rather read, than hers . . . I never want to love or lose again without it." —Sarah Hosseini, Writer, Journalist, Professor
Kirkus Reviews
2023-01-25
A biracial woman contemplates motherhood, grief, and being Black in America.
The unnamed narrator of Harrison’s debut novel is a 34-year-old Black Japanese photographer and teacher who is struggling with infertility and an increasingly complicated relationship to motherhood. Slipping back and forth in time, the slim novel follows the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness thoughts and meandering memories. The narrator blames herself for a life-altering family tragedy and struggles to believe she deserves good things, including, and perhaps most especially, a child. Between attending therapy sessions and police brutality protests, the narrator remembers falling in love with her husband, Asher Fromm, her recent miscarriage, the agony of her young adulthood, and teaching her photography students, including a talented Black student named Noah. When Noah is shot by police while reaching for a candy bar in his back pocket, the narrator begins to question whether she wants to bring a baby into this world—into a country that murders Black children—despite it being all her husband (who is White and Jewish) wants. Her once-staunch stance against motherhood and marriage changed when she met him, but in the face of her all-consuming grief she asks: “Could my malfunctioning body and the reality of this American nightmare change it back?” As the couple figures out how to move forward after loss, the narrator finds herself secretly visiting Noah in the hospital, working on a new documentary project, and, against all odds, pregnant again. Harrison’s writing is unflinching throughout, but the depictions of miscarriage and infertility—and their effect on a marriage—are particularly haunting: “The light is perfect, and you are far away in some honest, uncharted place. I don’t know where, only that I can’t get there. Not even with directions, a compass, or you holding my hand.” In the vein of Jenny Offill and Raven Leilani, Harrison’s debut offers an intimate slice-of-life portrait with no easy questions or answers.
A poetic novel that dances on the edge of hope and despair.
