Dinitia Smith is the author of four previous novels,
including The Illusionist, which was a New York Times Notable Book
of the Year, and her short stories have been published in numerous
magazines. For eleven years, she was a reporter at the New York
Times where she wrote on literary topics and intellectual trends.
Smith has won many awards for her writing, including fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill
Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Bread Loaf Writers
Conference. She is also an Emmy Award winning filmmaker. Her drama,
Passing Quietly Through, was chosen for the New York Film Festival,
and shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern
Art.
Praise for The Prince: "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, bestselling author and 2020 Booker Prize
judge "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, author of Call Me By Your Name "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, author of
The Last Station and Borges and Me "With delicacy and flair,
Dinitia Smith has succeeded in bringing the themes of Henry James'
great novel to bear on twenty-first century lives and
circumstances. The Prince is a sympathetic homage to James as well
as being a gripping contemporary novel in its own right." --Brooke
Allen, author and critic "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, author of Today a Woman Went Mad in the
Supermarket: Stories "Smith reminds us, as James did, that the
human heart is above all a place of terror, and pity, and
dread."--Michael Gorra, author of Portrait of a Novel: Henry James
and the Making of an American Masterpiece "An elegant, eloquent,
and fully entertaining novel by a writer with an impressive and
reader engaging narrative driven storytelling style, The Prince by
author Dinitia Smith is unabashedly recommended addition to
community library Romance Fiction collections. It should be noted
for the personal reading lists of all dedicated romance fans that
The Prince is also readily available in a digital book
format."--James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review Praise for The
Illusionist: "A skillfully written novel. And its greatest strength
is the sensitivity with which Smith explores the complexities of
love."--Edward Hower, The New York Times Book Review "Based loosely
on a true hate crime in Humboldt, Nebraska, Smith's novel is a
deeply disturbing and provocative study not only of the transsexual
psyche but of the meaning of romantic love and its attendant powers
of denial.--Beth E. Andersen, Library Journal "Beautifully written.
With this haunting book, Smith tells a wonderful tale and raises
provocative questions."--Chicago Tribune "Mesmerizing, erotic
suspense."--Stephen King "A powerful novel about sexual desire and
social disorder."--Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered
"Smoke-and-mirrors prose that would dazzle Houdini . . . Smith has
written a truly chilling winter's tale."--Detour magazine "Dinitia
Smith has taken this 'true' story and given its characters
introspection and sad dignity."--Carolyn See, The Washington Post
"The unfathomable mysteries of sexual identity and charisma
permeate this dark, meditative tale of a transsexual's murder in
upstate New York, by the author of The Hard Rain (1980) and
Remember This (1989)--inspired by an actual incident in Nebraska .
. . Smith's harsh but deadly accurate evocation of
late-20th-century rural life almost upstages the violent drama in
the foreground. Still, both prove memorable in this haunting
exploration of a senseless and brutal murder."--Kirkus Reviews
"[Smith] nails the fading ambience of a town that has lost its
reason for being. And she shows poignantly why . . . women will
seek and sustain the illusion of love."--Carole Goldberg, The
Hartford Courant "[A] quicksilver novel in which nothing, not even
sexual identity, is unwavering . . . Smith has stripped away an
even greater illusion: that human sexuality is straightforward and
fathomable, normative and neat."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air
"The Illusionist is a terrifying story of the ways good people can
follow their most generous instincts straight into tragedy. Dinitia
Smith's novel makes the bizarre plausible while it heightens the
ordinary. I was caught in its web, beguiled from first page to
last."--Rosellen Brown "A haunting, heartbreaking, utterly
unforgettable novel. What an overwhelming accomplishment of the
imagination!"--Larry Kramer Praise for The Honeymoon: "[This]
appealing fictionalized biography of the revered British novelist
George Eliot imagines the inner impulses and passions hidden under
a cloak of 19th-century propriety . . . Smith's portrait of the
author is nicely detailed, effectively locating her in time, place,
and society."--Kirkus Reviews "Smith's portrait of Eliot's
honeymoon with Cross . . . plausibly brings to life a puzzling
period of her life. With the historical record lacking or shrouded,
it is the perfect example of when fictional storytelling about an
eminent person is warranted."--The Washington Post "Smith's
enchanting account humanizes a figure renowned as much for her
refutation of conventional female stereotypes and social
limitations as for her genius for story and language. Eliot's
personal life is reflected here as a series of deep insecurities
regarding her appeal to men and the contributions her partners made
to her work--Felix Holt, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda--novels that
endure as some of the most formative texts in English
literature."--The New York Times Book Review "Smith's vivid
exploration of the mind of author George Eliot, given name Marian
Evans, and her late-in-life marriage to John Walter Cross raises
the bar for historical fiction . . . Eliot fans will certainly
inhale every page, but any historical-fiction readers will
thoroughly relish Smith's tale of a remarkable woman and an
unlikely Victorian love."--Booklist (STARRED REVIEW) "A mesmerizing
reimagination of George Eliot's accursed marriage."--Vanity Fair "A
deep dive into love's turbulent waters, and into the mysterious
heart of a person we thought we knew best."--Vogue "...Smith...does
well with invented incidents, such as a gondolier's aggressive
sexual interest in Cross, and encounters with Dickens, Darwin, and
the pioneering women's-rights activist Barbara Bodichon, with whom
Eliot had a loyal friendship."--The New Yorker "Smith has admirably
fleshed out her subject, and her take should be welcomed by anyone
interested in the life of this great writer--and in historical
fiction generally."--Library Journal "The intelligent and gripping
tale weaves historical truths with the author's imagining of
Eliot's inner voice in this enchanting look at her honeymoon in
1880 Venice."--The National Examiner "One of the greatest
challenges of fiction is to dare to step inside a great figure of
the past, to relive their experiences, but also to fill in the
gaps, to recreate their inner voice. Dinitia Smith sets out to do
just this, and succeeds brilliantly, in her latest novel, The
Honeymoon."--Historical Novels Review "Regardless, Smith's novel
resolves Virginia Woolf's observation that 'to read George Eliot
attentively is to become aware how little one knows about her.' The
Honeymoon is nothing less than a séance: through the alchemy of
biographical precision and fictional speculations, Smith conjures
for readers a vivid, sensual, and endearing account of George
Eliot's life."--Necessary Fiction "If you never read George Eliot
because you were slightly intimidated, The Honeymoon will reassure
you. And if you're already a fan of Middlemarch, Adam Bede, The
Mill on the Floss, and Daniel Deronda, then this book will fill
your imagination like a new friend you can't believe you've lived
so many years without. Smith's George Eliot is brilliant and
bold--as you know she is--but Smith is equally daring and no less
incisive. She is as worthy a successor to so formidable a writer as
is Colm Tóibín to Henry James."--André Aciman, author of Out of
Egypt: A Memoir "In this affecting novel, Dinitia Smith brings a
biographer's diligence and a novelist's imagination to bear upon
the life of George Eliot. Smith hews closely to the factual
contours of Eliot's last months--in particular, her marriage to a
man twenty years her junior--while making provocative, speculative
leaps into the mind and heart of the Victorian author. In so doing,
Smith finds a way to consider some of the same questions that
preoccupied Eliot in her own masterful fictions: What is the
meaning and purpose of marriage? What are the challenges of
imagining our way into the experience of those around us? And how
might we--even with the best intentions in the world--fail in our
comprehension of those closest to us?"--Rebecca Mead, author of My
Life in Middlemarch "The brilliant George Eliot was one of the most
fascinating women in history. Dinitia Smith sets the scene for her
dramatic last act with depth and style."--Brooke Allen, critic and
author "The Honeymoon explores different kinds of love, and of the
possibilities of redemption and happiness even in an imperfect
union. Smith integrates historical truth with her own rich
rendition of Eliot's inner voice, crafting a page-turner that is as
intelligent as it is gripping."--The Book Table "The Honeymoon is
one of those novels that seems to unfold without words, perfectly
imagined, like a dream. It's an eloquent story about George Eliot's
late marriage to a much younger man; but this only touches the
surface. Dinitia Smith digs into the interior life of genius
here--exploring the greatest English novelist of the Victorian
period. She brings that fine mind, and this astonishing age, to
pulsing life. I love the pace of the narrative, the deep feeling
that dwells here, deepening at every turn. This is wonderful
fiction, taking us into the interior of human consciousness itself,
into the heart of creation."--Jay Parini, author of The Last
Station
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