FROM THE PUBLISHER

Set in Jane Hamilton's signature Midwest, The Short History of a Prince is the story of Walter McCloud and his ambition to become a great ballet dancer. With compassion and humor, and alternating between Walter's adolescent and adult voices, the novel tells of Walter's heartbreak as he realizes that his passion cannot make up for the innate talent that he lacks. Introduced as a child to the genius of Balanchine and the lyricism of Tchaikovsky by his stern but cultured aunt Sue Rawson, Walter has dreamed of growing up to shine in the role of the Prince in The Nutcracker. But as Walter struggles with the limits of his own talent and faces the knowledge that Mitch and Susan, his more gifted friends, have already surpassed him, Daniel, his older brother, awakens one morning with a strange lump on his neck that leads to fearful consequences - and to Walter's realization that a happy family, and a son's place in it, can tragically change overnight. The year that follows will in fact transform the lives not only of the McClouds but also of Susan, who becomes deeply involved with the sick Daniel, and Mitch, the handsome and supremely talented dancer with whom Walter is desperately in love. Into this absorbing narrative Hamilton weaves a place of almost mythical healing, the family's summer home at Lake Margaret, Wisconsin, where for generations the clan has gathered on both happy and unhappy occasions.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Adolescence always presents difficulties, but for a boy struggling with his sexual identity along with a fierce desire to be a ballet dancer, the pain can be intense. Written by Hamilton, best known for PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award winner The Book of Ruth (Audio Reviews, LJ 5/1/97) and for A Map of the World, this novel tells of Walter McCloud's growing up in the Midwest. Influenced by his artistic aunt who introduces him to classical music and the ballet, Walter discovers after a few years of study that he has little talent for the ballet. This realization brings severe disappointment since his talented best friends, Mitch and Susan, earn roles he covets. Amid all this turmoil Walter learns that his older brother Daniel is suffering from cancer. A skilled writer, Hamilton manages to convey the pain and loss in Walter's life, as well as the potential for hope and redemption through the love and support of friends and family. Robert Sean Leonard reads with sensitivity and conviction. The sound quality is excellent. Recommended for general collections.-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo

AudioFile - Rachel Astarte Piccione

One of the most striking aspects of this production is the masterful performance of Robert Sean Leonard. It's hard to believe he's only in his twenties. Hamilton's poignant and touching story tells of a young man driven by his passion (but no talent) for a career in ballet and for a handsome dancer both of which he can never have. Leonard's mastery is apparent as the listener becomes absorbed in Walter's story, as well as the lives of each of the other characters, for he reads them with equal emotion and truthfulness. Such a combination of beautiful text and a truly insightful performance is a rare find. R.A.P. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner cAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Christine Cassidy

"...Hamilton has a deft touch when it comes to expression passion; she never oversttes her case, making the reader feel as entwined in the outcome of these events as the characters....The Short History of a Prince is ultimately about our responsibility as gay people to make amends, heal old hurts, and not reject our past lives no matter how humiliating. We can go home again. There are people waiting for us." -- Lambda Book Report

Pastan

I've always looked forward to new novels from Jane Hamilton, but I was particularly interested in The Short History of a Prince. I'd heard it was about a young aspirant to the rigorous, baffling, self-contained world of ballet, a promising setup.

The "prince" of the novel, however, turns out to be Walter McCloud, 38 as the book opens and with his dancing years long behind him. Returning to Wisconsin after an aimless decade or so in New York City, he intends to teach English to the freshmen of Otten High, not far from his family's place at Lake Margaret. The story alternates between the present, in which Walter must figure out what the hell he wants to do with the rest of his life, and 1972-73, the year he gave up dancing and his older brother Daniel died of cancer.

Walter is an appealing character: smart, energetic and determined. Gay and single, a generous snob, he is prone to fits of despair but is more or less at peace with himself. Perhaps, in fact, he's too good to be true -- as though the author, writing so closely from the point of view of someone from a minority group of which she is not a member, felt compelled to give him too much benefit of the doubt. Yet at least he is reasonably complicated, as many of the other characters in this book (the dying brother, the witchy aunt with the heart of gold, the cruel and beautiful first love) are not.

There is some ballet in the novel, but Hamilton's emphasis is on the more familiar topics of love and loss and coming to terms with the past. The novel treats these subjects intelligently, but there's more meditation here than drama. The questions of whether Walter's family will lose Lake Margaret, whether Walter will have enough courage to pursue a liaison with a handsome poet, whether or not he'll win over his seventh-period English class, are not pressing enough to pull you through. The family place is often the setting, and while the rambling house and sparkling water sustain Walter, Lake Margaret is not conveyed sufficiently evocatively to do the same for us.

What does sustain us is Walter's considerable energy, and his appealing sensibility. Each page is interesting insofar as his thoughts and perceptions are interesting -- sometimes less, often more. The most memorable parts are when he dances, particularly his tragicomic stint as the Prince in the Rockford Ballet's amateurish production of the Nutcracker. It is in moments like these, when Walter's life is at its most unfamiliar, that the book comes most compellingly to life. -- Salon March 31, 1998

Kirkus Reviews

A meditative, slow-moving, and thoroughly absorbing family drama—about loving, losing, and holding on to all we can—from the author of (the Oprah-chosen) The Book of Ruth (1988) and A Map of the World (1994). The story's protagonist and primary viewpoint character is Walter McCloud, whom we observe (in alternating chapters) as a sensitive, bookish, and—he's quite sure—homosexual teenager growing up in an Illinois suburb in the early '70s among a trio of close friends and fellow ballet students, including beautiful Susan Claridge and her equally beautiful boyfriend (and Walter's sometime sexual partner), Mitch Anderson; and also 25 years later, when Walter, who has long since given up ballet, returns "home" to teach high-school English in Otten, Wisconsin, not far from the gorgeous lakeside summer place owned by his mother's family. It's a richly varied narrative, whose emotional high point is the lingering death from Hodgkin's disease (in 1973) of Walter's older brother Daniel (with whom Susan forms a surprisingly emotional intimate relationship, painfully reshuffling the trio's already complicated feelings for one another). Other losses, both threatened and endured, figure prominently: the likelihood that the frosty maiden aunt who had awakened Walter's aesthetic sense will force the sale of the family's beloved summer house; and Walter's burden of guilt over "his shameful relations with Mitch, his hateful feelings toward Susan, his indifference to his brother." Hamilton writes beautiful summary and descriptive sentences; unfortunately, though, Walter (who is, to be sure, presented as unusually intelligent and articulate) speaks in almost preciselythe same manner. This tendency toward formality creates a distance from the reader that is, however, vitiated by our genuine empathy with the novel's many vividly drawn characters (the inquisitive and querulous Mrs. Gamble is an especially memorable figure). Hamilton ends it with a beautiful coda that may remind readers of both Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood and James Agee's A Death in the Family. Like them, this is a lyrical, bighearted novel that won't easily be forgotten.