The Uncertain Hour: A Novel - Hardcover

Jesse Browner is a writer and translator who lives in New York. He is the author of the novels Conglomeros (1992) and Turnaway (1996), and of The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down, a widely praised history of hospitality in Western civilization. He has been a contributor to the New York Times Book Review, Food and Wine magazine, Nest magazine, New York magazine, and others.

“Lush and sorrowful...splendid...lusciously described... gorgeous.” ―The New York Observer

“The Uncertain Hour is that very rare thing -- a historical novel of love and ideas not only free of pedantry, but also serious and entertaining. Browner has done a fine and meticulous job borrowing from the actual "Satyricon" dishes for Petronius' lovingly described last supper...a rewarding new novel.” ―Los Angeles Times

“A long night's meditation on love, life and death amid the decadence of the Roman empire, for those who like their historical fiction steeped in philosophy. The ultimate message that the way one dies is as important as the way one has lived, that death defines a life, is both timeless and modern. A reflective evening in the face of death.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“[An] engaging historical novel. Browner has done his homework, and his meticulous description of a Roman banquet and its attendant rituals, as well as his account of first-century Roman politics, letters and even clothing styles, is immediately immersive. Browner creates with considerable skill a snapshot of Roman life-and death.” ―Publishers Weekly

“Browner deftly captures, with minute detail, patrician life circa CE 66, filling his narrative with beautiful descriptions of Petronius' villa, his slaves, the Aegean, and the abundant delicacies of the final feast” ―Booklist (starred)

“If I say that Jesse Browner's The Uncertain Hour is a truly original work of art, I hope I won't scare anyone off. It's also the most engrossing page-turner I've picked up in a long while.” ―Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

“The Uncertain Hour is imbued with the sweetness and sadness of life. Jesse Browner transports us to another world full of hauntingly universal truths.” ―Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt and Cod

“The Uncertain Hour is as sumptuous a feast as the fabulous banquet it describes. It is also an elegant meditation on the nature of love, what makes a good life, and whether there can be such a thing as a perfect death. I don't know which to praise more: the author's feat of historical reconstruction, or his boundless powers of invention.” ―Sigrid Nunez, author of The Last of Her Kind

“I greatly enjoyed and admired Jesse Browner's enthralling The Uncertain Hour, which recounts the final hours of excess and bleakness leading to the certain suicide of Petronius, a Roman nobleman. Its mixture of love, regret and death-fuelled defiance is heartbreaking, but also oddly uplifting, largely because Browner is such a convincing, calm and gracious narrator.” ―Jim Crace, author of Being Dead and The Pesthouse

“In prose that is passionate, deeply meditative, and as richly detailed as the marbles and mosaics that Nero's Arbiter of Elegance knew so well, Browner's The Uncertain Hour transports the reader to an ancient Roman world vividly alive, even as it moves step by step toward the death awaiting Petronius at the end of his last banquet. A sensual and moving feast.” ―Jane Alison, author of The Love-Artist, The Marriage of the Sea, and Natives and Exotics