What do you think?
Rate this book
Blue Hours
Set in early 1990s Manhattan and in eastern Afghanistan circa 2012, Blue Hours deftly explores identity, self-determination, and the consequences of neocolonialism. When we first meet Mim, a recent college graduate in NYC, she has disavowed her working-class roots, befriending Kyra, a dancer and daughter of privilege, until calamity causes their estrangement. Twenty years later, Kyra has gone missing abroad, 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 female friendship at its core, Blue Hours combines the moral complexity and surprise of Lillian Hellman’s Julia and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder—Daphne Kalotay has crafted an unconventional tale about venturing beyond borders and of citizens persisting amid protracted war. In its ethical provocations, Blue Hours is timely and resonant, confronting the dissonance of America's role in the conflicted, interconnected world.
Anchored by an uninvited voyage into an extraordinary place, with female friendship at its core, Blue Hours combines the moral complexity and surprise of Lillian Hellman’s Julia and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder—Daphne Kalotay has crafted an unconventional tale about venturing beyond borders and of citizens persisting amid protracted war. In its ethical provocations, Blue Hours is timely and resonant, confronting the dissonance of America's role in the conflicted, interconnected world.
- GenresFiction
302 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2019
4 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
Daphne Kalotay
8 books249 followersDaphne Kalotay grew up in New Jersey, where her parents had relocated from Ontario; her mother is Canadian, while her father came from Hungary to Canada as a teen. Daphne attended Vassar College, majoring in psychology, before moving to Boston to attend Boston University's graduate program in fiction writing. She stayed on to earn a PhD in Modern and Contemporary literature, writing her dissertation on one of her favorite writers, Mavis Gallant. Her interview with Mavis Gallant can be found in the Paris Review's Writers-at-work series. At Boston University, Daphne's stories won the school's Florence Engell Randall Fiction Prize and a Henfield Foundation Award. Her first book, the fiction collection Calamity and Other Stories, was short-listed for the Story Prize and includes work first published in Agni, Good Housekeeping, The Literary Review, Missouri Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her debut novel, the international bestseller Russian Winter, won the 2011 Writers' League of Texas Award in Fiction. Her second novel, the Boston Globe bestseller Sight Reading, won the New England Society Book Award in Fiction, and her third novel, Blue Hours, was a Massachusetts Book Awards "Must Read." Her new collection, The Archivists, is the winner of the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction. Daphne has taught literature and creative writing at Boston University, University of Massachusetts, Harvard University, Skidmore College, Middlebury College, and Princeton University. She lives in the Boston area.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
September 18, 2019
I have become a huge fan of Daphne Kalotay. This is her third novel, and I have thoroughly enjoyed all three of them. Though there are references to the arts here (one of the main characters is a modern dance performer, the other a novelist and playwright), they play a much lesser role than they did in her first two novels.
Although it is revealed very early on that Kyra was missing in Afghanistan while doing relief work there, this books really begins as the lead character, Mim, is entering her early twenties trying to find her identity while navigating the East Greenwich Village during the 1990s. She meets and becomes obsessed with a beautiful dancer named Kyra from a privileged family. They become separated mainly due to a traumatic event and lose touch for twenty years. Mim receives a call from Roy, who grew up with Kyra, informing her that Kyra is missing and that he has a package sent by her but that is intended for Mim. This sets off a series of events that lead to Mim and Roy traveling to Afghanistan attempting to discover what has happened to their mutual friend and save her if necessary.
There are two major threads through this novel, one of them being the love between Mim and Kyra and what it meant and still means twenty years later. The other thread involves the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and all the implications that arise from them. And though the novel starts out as essentially a love story and dealing with becoming an adult, the last half is really an adventure story with all the perils that include dealing with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and US hubris in the Middle East. There is quite a bit of tension that builds up which does not dissipate until the final page. And the book ends with an emotional rush. All hail Daphne Kalotay.
Although it is revealed very early on that Kyra was missing in Afghanistan while doing relief work there, this books really begins as the lead character, Mim, is entering her early twenties trying to find her identity while navigating the East Greenwich Village during the 1990s. She meets and becomes obsessed with a beautiful dancer named Kyra from a privileged family. They become separated mainly due to a traumatic event and lose touch for twenty years. Mim receives a call from Roy, who grew up with Kyra, informing her that Kyra is missing and that he has a package sent by her but that is intended for Mim. This sets off a series of events that lead to Mim and Roy traveling to Afghanistan attempting to discover what has happened to their mutual friend and save her if necessary.
There are two major threads through this novel, one of them being the love between Mim and Kyra and what it meant and still means twenty years later. The other thread involves the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and all the implications that arise from them. And though the novel starts out as essentially a love story and dealing with becoming an adult, the last half is really an adventure story with all the perils that include dealing with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and US hubris in the Middle East. There is quite a bit of tension that builds up which does not dissipate until the final page. And the book ends with an emotional rush. All hail Daphne Kalotay.
November 8, 2024
Tema afganistansko-američkog sukoba, humanitarnih talaca i egzistencije u suvremenom demokratskom društvu.
April 5, 2019
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.
July 19, 2019
In Blue Hours we meet a group of recent college graduates in 1991 and then again twenty years later. Kyra, loved and lost by both Mim and Roy after they left school, is missing from her non-profit aid station in Afghanistan and her last known act was to send years of unmailed letters she had written to Mim, mailed to Roy to be delivered to Mim, presumably because she had Roy's address. Roy has the means to hire personnel to find Kyra, but he insists that he and Mim must go and do their best to locate her - they owe it to her to give this their personal attention despite the fact that Mim hasn't heard from Kyra in twenty years - until those letters delivered now.
Mim's husband Nolan and her teenaged son Sean are self-sufficient enough to muddle through during her absence - they do it when she is on the road with the release of her latest novel - but Nolan, in particular, feels fearful at the very thought of her traveling through what is a major war zone with a man he doesn't know to find a woman she once loved. Those letters, read randomly as Mim finds a slice of free time, brings both Mim and Kyra into sharper focus, and gives their stories added depth.
This story is action-packed, the descriptive passages during the trek through Afghanistan take you there, the people they encounter are well fleshed out and the attempts at rescuing Kyra are involved but plausible. This is a novel I am pleased to recommend to friends and family.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Daphne Kalotay, and Northwestern University Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.
Pub date July 15, 2019
Northwestern University Press
Reviewed on July 18, 2019, at Goodreads, Netgalley, AmazonSmile, Barnes & Noble, BookBub. Kobo site unaccessible tonight. Kobo review on July 19, 2019.
Mim's husband Nolan and her teenaged son Sean are self-sufficient enough to muddle through during her absence - they do it when she is on the road with the release of her latest novel - but Nolan, in particular, feels fearful at the very thought of her traveling through what is a major war zone with a man he doesn't know to find a woman she once loved. Those letters, read randomly as Mim finds a slice of free time, brings both Mim and Kyra into sharper focus, and gives their stories added depth.
This story is action-packed, the descriptive passages during the trek through Afghanistan take you there, the people they encounter are well fleshed out and the attempts at rescuing Kyra are involved but plausible. This is a novel I am pleased to recommend to friends and family.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Daphne Kalotay, and Northwestern University Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.
Pub date July 15, 2019
Northwestern University Press
Reviewed on July 18, 2019, at Goodreads, Netgalley, AmazonSmile, Barnes & Noble, BookBub. Kobo site unaccessible tonight. Kobo review on July 19, 2019.
November 28, 2019
Daphne Kalotay is a friend, and she consistently writes engaging, intelligent novels. My all-time favorite of her books is Russian Winter. But this one holds its own. I was amazed by her depth of knowledge about PTSD and life in a war zone, not to mention the diversity of cultures and sub-cultures in Afghanistan. Do read this one! It’s a page-turner!
April 25, 2019
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.
March 21, 2019
Thank you to Northwestern University Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 19th, 2019.
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!
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!
October 23, 2019
Although this novel had some potentially important and interesting themes, it failed to engage or convince me and I was left feeling disappointed. The story centres on Mim and a group of young graduates setting out on life in 1990s New York. Mim meets Kyra, a dancer, and becomes passionately attached to her. Then Kyra leaves suddenly and the next we hear of her it’s 20 years later and she has disappeared in Afghanistan where she has been an aid worker. That’s giving quite a lot of the plot away but the synopsis on Amazon and elsewhere unashamedly does so too. For me the two halves of the book just didn’t hang together. The first half is interesting enough with a range of characters – although as we see them from Mim’s (mostly dense) point of view, none of them are fully developed. Kyra too remains under-developed and no attempt is made to explore how she turns from successful dancer into aid worker. The second half of the book describes Mim’s quest to find her friend in war-torn Afghanistan, which ought to have been exciting but simply wasn’t. Mim’s adventures are related in a cold, dispassionate tone that is at odds with the events described and in the end I found the whole episode tedious. Mim is admittedly an unreliable narrator but I felt that this wasn’t a stylistic device but simply a failure of characterisation. So many questions are left unexamined. What is the nature of the relationship between Mim and Kyra? How does it survive their separation? It seems unlikely, at the very least, that Mim would suddenly risk everything, even her life, to go on this ill-advised journey to Afghanistan to find someone she hasn’t seen for half her life. And why hasn’t she? I was also dismayed at the portrayal of the Afghan characters. They come across as stereotypes and there was no attempt to depict them as fully rounded characters. Perhaps this merely reflects Mim’s own blinkered view but it makes them merely bit-players in their own story. Overall I found the book rather shallow and unimpressive.
September 1, 2019
This book is told exclusively in narrative passages, with some dialogue to break up the pattern. I have to be in the mood for it, and tonight, I was. I liked the writing style for the first twenty pages. It helped me not notice how boring the main character is, but also how melodramatic she is about everything. She seems to believe she's the first college student to eat ramen and instant mac n'cheese, and won't actually mention the products by name, but by overly romantic descriptions. That is one of many examples. Other things that she's a drama llama about and describes in needlessly romantic prose include: her poverty, Kyra, Carl's death (how awful of her), Kyra, New York, and Kyra. She detaches herself from or ignores anything interesting or that could indicate forward plot movement, except Kyra. It wore so thin. This book would have been -way- more interesting had it been from Kyra's POV, especially considering the second part. The main character exhibits weird xenophobia but definite classism throughout the whole first part of the novel, and it was unpleasant. There was mild homophobia mixed in there, too, towards the gay roommate. He's never even given a name, just referred to as gay, and his boyfriend shows up even less but the MC mentions both of them together in every sentence they are mentioned. It's only a few sentences the whole novel, and both characters could have easily been cut. I'm puzzled as to why they were even there. The author introduces the possibility of romantic and sexual relationships between each roommate oddly. I wrote that in a different way in my notes, and am proud I got it to make sense on here. The MC's crush on Kyra was plain from the beginning, though.
And then there's part two of the novel. How does a talented, artistic, focused dancer who's successful enough not to have a day job wind up as a humanitarian worker? And on a paramilitary-sounding mission across several years in the Middle East? When did Kyra ever get enough experience? Mentions of her military-style jacket and her knowledge of the conflict are not enough, author. Who are the people she's mentioning? Yet more reasons this story should have been from Kyra's POV. Part two throws readers not into the present, as a few previous passages do, but a few years from the original past that Part I was dedicated to. Suddenly the book is a paramilitary drama. Why? How? What? This is sloppy writing and poor world-building. I was expecting to and wanted to learn more about Kyra's dancing and wealthy background. If she were a real person, I'd have a little crush on her. Instead, the book progresses how it does.
I soon started skimming, pausing to read Kyra's letters and some surrounding text. In one chapter, the main character's father is sick. In the next, he's dead. It was a pointless interjection of events. This book is entirely about the MC's crush on Kyra, from start to finish. Roy's disgust and resentment of lesbians is treated as no more than a character quirk. This book has an ambiguous, boring ending. Given that this book is told in passive, narrative passages, it's like nothing really happened. I'm glad I gave the book a try, though.
And then there's part two of the novel. How does a talented, artistic, focused dancer who's successful enough not to have a day job wind up as a humanitarian worker? And on a paramilitary-sounding mission across several years in the Middle East? When did Kyra ever get enough experience? Mentions of her military-style jacket and her knowledge of the conflict are not enough, author. Who are the people she's mentioning? Yet more reasons this story should have been from Kyra's POV. Part two throws readers not into the present, as a few previous passages do, but a few years from the original past that Part I was dedicated to. Suddenly the book is a paramilitary drama. Why? How? What? This is sloppy writing and poor world-building. I was expecting to and wanted to learn more about Kyra's dancing and wealthy background. If she were a real person, I'd have a little crush on her. Instead, the book progresses how it does.
I soon started skimming, pausing to read Kyra's letters and some surrounding text. In one chapter, the main character's father is sick. In the next, he's dead. It was a pointless interjection of events. This book is entirely about the MC's crush on Kyra, from start to finish. Roy's disgust and resentment of lesbians is treated as no more than a character quirk. This book has an ambiguous, boring ending. Given that this book is told in passive, narrative passages, it's like nothing really happened. I'm glad I gave the book a try, though.
July 14, 2019
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.
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.
April 13, 2022
It’s 1991, and recent college graduate Mim wants to be a writer, but for now she is folding clothes at Benetton. She notices the trash-filled streets and befriends exotic Kyra, who joins Mim’s disparate group of roommates, all squeezed together in a crumbling NYC apartment. Their relationship gets closer, and Mim meets Roy, the man Kyra plans to marry. Then, the anguish of another of the roommates, a veteran of the Gulf war, becomes unbearable, and Mim returns home to Boston. She loses track of Kyra for twenty years. Now it’s 2012, Mim is married, a successful writer and raising an adopted child when she learns that Kyra has disappeared in Afghanistan. Mim’s journey to find her old friend forces her to confront her choices, herself, and her understanding of America’s ability to change the world. I got to interview the author: https://newbooksnetwork.com/daphne-ka...
July 2, 2024
,,...tamo gde bi trebalo da su nam se duše srele, ne napipavam ništa sem praznine."
Neobična priča o Kiri i Mim, dvema drugaricama, a potom i emotivnim partnerkama od trenutka njihovog upoznavanja, cimerovanja i rastanka uzrokovanog smrću zajedničkog prijatelja ali i sopstvenim strahovima i nesigurnostima. Mnogo godina kasnije Mim je supruga, majka i poznata spisateljica koja od Kirinog bivšeg supruga Roja saznaje da se Kira kao članica humanitarne organizacije u Afganistanu vodi kao nestala. Mim i Roj kreću u potragu za Kirom, a dodatni pokretač za Mim jesu pisma koja je Kira preko Roja poslala Mim neposredno pre nestanka.
Knjiga se dotiče i tema rata, terorizma i PTSP.
Neobična priča o Kiri i Mim, dvema drugaricama, a potom i emotivnim partnerkama od trenutka njihovog upoznavanja, cimerovanja i rastanka uzrokovanog smrću zajedničkog prijatelja ali i sopstvenim strahovima i nesigurnostima. Mnogo godina kasnije Mim je supruga, majka i poznata spisateljica koja od Kirinog bivšeg supruga Roja saznaje da se Kira kao članica humanitarne organizacije u Afganistanu vodi kao nestala. Mim i Roj kreću u potragu za Kirom, a dodatni pokretač za Mim jesu pisma koja je Kira preko Roja poslala Mim neposredno pre nestanka.
Knjiga se dotiče i tema rata, terorizma i PTSP.
December 10, 2020
Wow. And I didn't think I would love this.....Afghanistan, really? But no, it was FANTASTIC, as in could-not-put-it-down fantastic. A real credit to Ms. Kalotay who certainly can tell an engaging story. Again, no surprise there, her other 2 efforts that I read, Russian Winter and Sight Reading, were both fantastic --- and very different from each other.
Mim's journey with and then for Kyra, after a 20 year hiatus, is wrenching, sweet, sad, and full of self-enlightenment. Although I love the happy ending, I did not mind that this one was not so happy. The discovery of Mim's real self was kind of a bonus.
Mim's journey with and then for Kyra, after a 20 year hiatus, is wrenching, sweet, sad, and full of self-enlightenment. Although I love the happy ending, I did not mind that this one was not so happy. The discovery of Mim's real self was kind of a bonus.
August 1, 2022
DNF 2/3. I really liked the writing, and picked it up for that reason, but I felt it lacked something in narrative structure that made it easier to put down. (To be fair, I've been putting a lot of stuff down lately, so it's been hard for anything to grab my attention.) That being said, I think Daphne Kalotay is obviously very talented -- a very good writer -- and I want that to be the takeaway of this review. Excited to read more of her work.
October 13, 2019
Although I enjoyed Kalotay's previous books, this was a disappointment as I really didn't like any of the characters. Not sure what purpose the lesbian relationship served or had to do with global conflict. The plot felt disjointed, while the humanitarian message seemed forced and, in my opinion, missed the mark.
July 8, 2019
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.
May 14, 2020
Interesting story that picked up during the second half.
October 11, 2020
Amazing book
May 26, 2020
I will try to write a better review later but I would have picked up this book earlier if any of the blurbs or author interviews had indicated that 'complex female friendships' was code for 'in love love with each other'. What year is this? Just because the focus of a book is not on queer identity doesn't the queerness should go without mention.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2019
Ms Kalotay is a very talented writer. Being a male 2x the age the female protagonist and a plot focused the friendship of two women, I'm probably not the target audience for this. So, I should probably keep my comments brief. and let those who may be a better judge speak. Nonetheless, the characters and scenes and dialog were very well crafted. The pacing was a little uneven, but that's a minor thing. Overall, even though I didn't stay fully engaged throughout, I'd recommend this for those seeking a solid novel. I author has a bright future.
I really appreciate the ARC for review!
I really appreciate the ARC for review!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews