A modern retelling of The Golden Bowl by Henry James for fans of Sally Rooney and Kate Atkinson.
From their grand mansion on the Upper East Side to their magical private island in Long Island Sound, everything points to the Woodford family as being perfect and idyllic. Why, then, is there such tension in the air?
Enter Federico, a penniless Italian prince who is about to marry Emily Woodford, the only child of the family’s widowed patriarch, Henry. When Emily's beautiful, enigmatic childhood friend, Christina, appears on the scene as a guest at their wedding, trouble begins, for she and the Prince once had a passionate affair. Henry, however, is also enchanted by Christina. Now both Emily and her father must face a new reality, and learn whom they can, or cannot, trust.
Genre: Literary Fiction
From their grand mansion on the Upper East Side to their magical private island in Long Island Sound, everything points to the Woodford family as being perfect and idyllic. Why, then, is there such tension in the air?
Enter Federico, a penniless Italian prince who is about to marry Emily Woodford, the only child of the family’s widowed patriarch, Henry. When Emily's beautiful, enigmatic childhood friend, Christina, appears on the scene as a guest at their wedding, trouble begins, for she and the Prince once had a passionate affair. Henry, however, is also enchanted by Christina. Now both Emily and her father must face a new reality, and learn whom they can, or cannot, trust.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"What a wonderful gift of a book, and what a treat to return to Henry James' radiant plot a century later to recover the magic, the genius, and beauty of those shadows that always hover between one person and another. Money could be the reason, deceit the villain, love the remedy, but it is always trust that pays the price in the end. A stunning and audacious retelling of The Golden Bowl." - André Aciman
"Beautiful, elegant, and delicate at the sentence level, and wholly satisfying as a present-day story, this book's true delight is how, in both a literary and an emotional sense, the past informs the present, and the present informs the past--like a Mobius strip lovingly crafted by a Swiss watchmaker." - Lee Child
"I loved this novel. The Prince gently but relentlessly furls us in the shimmering world of New York high society, conjuring Henry James in a brilliant way, introducing two friends of remarkable poise--Emily and Christina. Federico, the handsome and eponymous prince of the story, is poor, at least in cash. But he's rich in every other way, and Dinitia Smith draws these astonishing figures in the carpet of her imagination together in a tangle of yearning, whimsy, and emotional betrayal. The narrative moves with an enviable swiftness, and one is left wishing for more and more." - Jay Parini
"This elegant and compelling novel vividly brings the world of Henry James into the present day. Dinitia Smith is a master storyteller and she has a wonderful story to tell." - Hilma Wolitzer
"Beautiful, elegant, and delicate at the sentence level, and wholly satisfying as a present-day story, this book's true delight is how, in both a literary and an emotional sense, the past informs the present, and the present informs the past--like a Mobius strip lovingly crafted by a Swiss watchmaker." - Lee Child
"I loved this novel. The Prince gently but relentlessly furls us in the shimmering world of New York high society, conjuring Henry James in a brilliant way, introducing two friends of remarkable poise--Emily and Christina. Federico, the handsome and eponymous prince of the story, is poor, at least in cash. But he's rich in every other way, and Dinitia Smith draws these astonishing figures in the carpet of her imagination together in a tangle of yearning, whimsy, and emotional betrayal. The narrative moves with an enviable swiftness, and one is left wishing for more and more." - Jay Parini
"This elegant and compelling novel vividly brings the world of Henry James into the present day. Dinitia Smith is a master storyteller and she has a wonderful story to tell." - Hilma Wolitzer
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