The Short History of a Prince : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: It was a short history for me!
Review: I couldn't get past page 68. I read the first chapter (1972), and found it OK, but once the second one got going (1995), I started getting very irritated. Walter came across as a malcontent whiny guy, and the characters so far had been less than enticing (Susan seemed slightly egotistical, and Lucy was way too perfect to be real). Another thing that bothered me is the excruciating descriptions that the author goes through about the most minute details. I could tolerate that level of detail when the story carries my interest (We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates is a great example), but in this case I just had to glaze over whole paragraphs describing suburbian neighborhoods. I hate it when I don't finish a book, so I decided to check Amazon reviews and see what other people had said. I'm not so disappointed now. To the author's credit, I didn't see the fact that Walter is gay right away. However, the parallelisms between lesbian aunt Sue Rawson mentoring Walter in his ballet, and then Walter mentoring his niece on hers were too melodramatic. The ending, which I only know about through other people's comments, makes me wonder if Jane Hamilton perhaps wrote this book with Oprah in mind. I really enjoyed The Book of Ruth. It was difficult to go through, but there was something true and compelling about the story and the characters. In this case, though, I wasn't able to find any empathy for anyone or get driven to the story.

Rating:
Summary: Bittersweet and Poignant
Review: Jane Hamilton's bittersweet and poignant novel, "A Short History of a Prince" is for anyone who has ever had a love that took up residence in the whole of their heart, yet remained as elusive as a dream. This is the beautifully crafted story of three friends, Walter, Susan and Mitch, who create memories together while drifting through the world around them like ghosts. This is Walter's story though, a boy whom we watch grow into uneasy adulthood, carrying inside of him all the dreams of his youth, unrealized.

Hamilton casts a wondrous spell on the reader with sepia-tinted imagery and poetic phrasing, vivid characters against a background that is at once dreamlike and real. "A Short History of a Prince" is the kind of story that gets lost in the fast-pace of our lives, but would be well-worth slowing down to read. In the adage "stop and smell the roses", Hamilton's book is that rose, beckoning alluringly from a place far off the trodden path. As a first-time reader of her work, I was enthralled from beginning to end, seeking out these pages whenever I could. Hamilton's writing helped me recapture emotions that seemed to have faded once I reached adulthood, with striking exactness. I highly recommend this book for everyone who hasn't taken the time to stop and smell the roses for a long, long time.

Rating:
Summary: An affecting, thought provoking book.
Review: This was my first experience with Jane Hamilton's writing, selected after reading several intriguing reviews. I found the book to be full of finely nuanced writing reflecting the inner life and soul of the main character, Walter, and his passage into middle age, guided by an overdue reassessment of his family, childhood and early adult years. I was frankly amazed that a mid-western women could write so convincingly about a gay man, however in my opinion Ms. Hamilton is right on target in an almost eerie way. Her insight allows readers to connect and find a bit of their own selves in the ordinary life of a man who while different, is really just like everyone. Ms. Hamilton's writing reminds me of Sue Miller, another author who writes so honestly about the way we really are, gently persuading the reader to examine their own lives, without flinching from the truth. Her almost effortless writing propels us forward in a seamless narrative flow, in a manner almost mirroring our own thoughts. I highly recommend this book, and I intend to immediately catch up with Ms. Hamilton's previous writing.