SOURCE: Brown, Rosellen. “Something Completely Different.” Women's Review of Books 15, no. 9 (June 1998): 6-7.

In the following review, Brown focuses on the dual passions of Walter, the protagonist in The Short History of a Prince, noting his key differences from Hamilton's previous protagonists.

Although readers may turn to us for guidance, book reviewers infrequently have a chance to think much, or at least long, about the work at hand. Film, drama and music critics have far shorter deadlines, but still we rarely have the leisure to let a book settle in our minds, let alone sink below consciousness level. That's a pity, because fiction works differently over time than it does when we must snap to and deliver an instant response.

All of which is an appropriately slow introduction to Jane Hamilton's leisurely Short History of a Prince. This is an odd book which, perhaps because it seemed exasperatingly...