Book review: The Violet Hour
Eithne Farry introduces American academic Katie Roiphe's latest book
By 
Psychologies
It’s a subject we often shy away from, but Katie Roiphe stares death in the face to see what she can see.
She’s looked at the last days of Sigmund Freud, Susan Sontag, Dylan Thomas, John Updike, James Salter and Maurice Sendak to look at how they confronted mortality.
Their responses were wildly different, ranging from rationality to self-delusion to mad excess – but all are fascinating, as these insightful elegies reveal.
The Violet Hour by Katie Roiphe (Virago, £16.99) is out now.
