Why is it that an important book, out since 1997, has no Amazon reviews? This lack is testament to the difficult world Hill has attempted to traverse: the world at the edge of the horizon, as demarcated by Maurice Blanchot. Hill spans this horizon with great compassion, sincerity and acuity, making this a most reliable, indeed, inspiring guide to his subject. We will need many commentaries, engagements and reflections on Blanchot in order fully join him at the edge, and Hill will always be among the most seminal of those. Hill's great excursion will long be located at the center. It will not be the commentary with which we begin, but it will be the one we use as a touchstone for our own studies.
"Blanchot, Extreme Contemporary," is framed by Blanchot's political involvements before and after WWII. Hill is responding to commentators who, not able to fully engage an author of the stature of Blanchot, seek to denigrate him by picking at political involvements -- as though their own involvements are somehow exemplary (go figure). Hill deeply comprehends Blanchot's "politics" as exemplifying a journey of a great spirit, and not the knee-jerk reflexes of a naive, self-absorbed and ambitious political hack (which one might say in order to forgive Heidegger).
But in between these bookend considerations Hill vaults over an arch of developing thought that includes, but does not fixate on key Blanchot expressions, such as "the unexperienced experience," the "neuter" and "friendship. It would be enough to grapple with Blanchot's notion of the impossibility of dying, no less engage these other startling thoughts; but Hill does not get snagged there. (For a dramatic interpretation of Blanchot's personal encounter with the impossibility of dying, by all means read Derrida's meditation, "Demeure," which accompanies Blanchot's text, "The Instant of My Death.")
Hill navigates through the Blanchot corpus with affection and deep penetration. He accomplishes this by citing Blanchot's lifelong friendship with Levinas, and his other loyalties, to Holderlin, Kafka, Mallarme, Rilke, Hegel, Heidegger Rene Char and Jean-Luc Nancy, among others. Elsewhere I have commented on Blanchot's method of abiding in friendship in order to take an even more adventurous journey. Hill reflects that sense, suffusing the book with warmth, even heat (in Blanchot, we are dealing with "works of fire," after all). In fidelity to Blanchot's setting out to engender a "plural speech" that welcomes as it extends and reframes another's speech, Hill succeeds completely.
Hill's discussions of Blanchot's fiction, especially, Death Sentence, help readers find their own ways through this part of Blanchot's corpus, while highlighting the fictive elements of Blanchot's critical and philosophical works.
At the end of the book, Hill writes of "Blanchot" -- "an empty name that coincides with its own multiplicity and endless fragmentation," True. And Hill has populated that vast horizon with strikes and flashes, friendships and engagements of insight that can connect us to Blanchot, if we are willing.
"Yes."

Recently I was looking for introductory texts in English on the works and thought of Blanchot when I was pleasantly surprised to come across "The Extreme Contemporary". The title itself betrays the depth of engagement with such a complex figure. Philosophically argued, aesthetically acute and politically unsettling while constantly holding to the ethical imperative of infinity at the heart of the thought of the social in Blanchot, Hill's scholarship is unique in depth, scope, and clarity. Detecting Blanchot's nuances between Heidegger, Levinas and Nancy is a major fit achieved by Hill deceptively in a seamless fashion. Also, as a translator myself, I can only appreciate the inclusion of many original quotes, phrases and terms in the immediate text for further elucidation, which bears witness to the professional ethics and scholarly scrutiny applied to the task of translation and commentary. Unqualifiedly recommended!