Spotlight: The Prince by Dinitia Smith

Money. Power. Sex. Family. These conflicts propel the world’s greatest novels. They seared the pages of The Golden Bowl by Henry James when it was published in 1904, and they inflame Dinitia Smith’s retelling, THE PRINCE (Arcade Publishing; March 1, 2022), creating a modern classic with twists and turns that even James couldn’t imagine.

Smith, a multiple award-winning former New York Times reporter, uses the modern equivalent of the glittering high society setting of the Golden Age to tell the story of a father and daughter and the prince who comes between them. Set partially on Woodford Island, based on Gardiners Island off the coast of East Hampton, NY, THE PRINCE reconstructs the claustrophobic tension of the original while exploring the four central relationships with a fresh, modern gaze.

Entangled in a complex web strung between love, duty and desire are Emily the happy, fresh-faced and rather clueless daughter of enormous wealth, and her worldlier friend, Christina, who has gotten ahead on her sense of style and stunning beauty.

Emily is about to wed the charming, affable and nearly destitute Italian Prince Frederico who spends his feckless days amusing himself with music and soccer, but unknown to Emily, hides a potentially devastating secret. 

At the wedding, Emily’s father, Henry Woodford, is drawn to the elegant Christina and soon after proposes marriage. But his primary relationship is with his daughter, and as his bride is left to her own devices, the interplay of the characters is set into chaotic motion culminating in an ending that fans of Henry James would appreciate—but never see coming.

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About the Author

DINITIA SMITH is the author of four previous novels, most recently The Honeymoon (Other Press), and her short stories have been published in numerous magazines. For 11 years, she was a reporter at the New York Times where she wrote on literary topics and intellectual trends. She 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 film maker.  Her film, Passing Quietly Through, was chosen for the New York Film Festival, and shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.