Praise for The Excellent Lombards Praise for Laura Rider's Masterpiece Praise for When Madeline Was Young Praise for Disobedience Praise for A Map of the World Praise for The Short History of a Prince Praise for The Book of Ruth Praise for The Excellent Lombards “Funny, insightful, observant, saturated with hope and melancholy.” —Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and The Leftovers “A book with so much grace, wit, and resonance—this is one you'll read and reread. A timeless classic.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Praise for Laura Rider's Masterpiece “A densely observed and seriously droll novel that reads like a dream. Astute, brazen, and very funny.” —Meg Wolitzer, bestselling author of The Ten-Year Nap “This book is terrific. I wish I could read it for the first time again!” —Patricia Marx, author of Him Her Him Again The End of Him Praise for When Madeline Was Young “Mesmerizing.... Bittersweet, funny.... Hamilton affirms her status as one of our most magnetic and provocative novelists.” —Chicago Tribune “Among the most graceful and thoughtful writers to work the fertile ground that is the Midwestern family.” —The Atlantic Monthly “Utterly elevating and joyful, a long spiritual drink in a parched landscape.” —The Washington Post “A study in grace and compassion.” —The Boston Globe “Hamilton's new novel is not to be forgotten.” —USA Today Praise for Disobedience "Wonderful.... Her finest novel yet." —Chicago Tribune "Lovely...resonant...keenly wrought." —The New York Times "Funny and moving.... An entertaining, well-plotted meditation on secrecy in the history of a loving family." —San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle "Suffused with the bittersweet nostalgia we feel for lost loves and failed romances.... Satisfying and moving. Hamilton writes beautifully." —Francine Prose "A warm, humane examination of the privileges and pitfalls of American family life." —The New York Times Book Review "Stunning...haunting.... So provocative that you must [read it].... Hamilton's greatest accomplishment here is [the] narrative voice—a psychologically astute creation that's compelling and chilling.... Another troubling masterpiece in what's fast become a remarkable body of work." —The Christian Science Monitor "A terrific story.... Hamilton has hit her highest mark thus far." —The Seattle Times "Charming.... Plenty of gentle surprise and humor.... Elvira and Henry Shaw [are] two of the best juvenile characters to jump off the pages since Holden and Phoebe Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.... Hamilton...has a fabulous ear for character and dialogue." —USA Today "Nearly letter perfect.... Haunting." —People "Intelligent and engagingly twisted.... [A novel of] complexity, eccentricity, and deep-down sobriety." —The Baltimore Sun "Quirky, uproarious and haunting—and an oddly prototypical American story." —The Oregonian "An engaging romp.... Jane Hamilton steps into a new world as exciting as it is uncharted." —Entertainment Weekly "Hamilton's done it again.... [A] ribbon of insight and sensitivity...runs beneath the surface of the entire story.... Convincing." —Time Out New York "A devastating study of love and hard-won loyalty." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "For its invention, wit and originality, Disobedience is a gem.... Hamilton has created a wonderfully oddball family.... The [narrative] voice is dryly funny and smart and something of a tour de force." —San Jose Mercury News "Carefully wrought.... Fans of Hamilton...will treasure how masterful, as always, [her] craft is. She is a lyrical, intelligent, insightful writer." —Detroit Free Press "Hamilton brilliantly transports us into [a] preoccupied teenager's mind through her heartfelt prose.... It is in the little details that the novel really sings.... Readers will stay glued to the pages to get answers to several burning questions." —The Orlando Sentinel "Hamilton has again charted a new and risky course for fiction.... [She] is a novelist of surpassing gifts, wit and wisdom about the human condition as it persists through challenging times." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Compelling.... A story to be savored." —Fort Worth Star-Telegram "Compulsively readable...Disobedience is a beautiful book, an intelligent drama with an unusual perspective.... Hamilton has found her most confident, masterful voice." —New York Post Praise for A Map of the World "Jane Hamilton has removed all doubts that she belongs among the major writers of our time." —San Francisco Chronicle "Stunning prose and unforgettable characters.... An enthralling tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying ways our lives can spin out of control. A+" —Entertainment Weekly "It takes a writer of rare power and discipline to carry off an achievement like A Map of the World. Hamilton proves here that she is one of the best." —Newsweek "Ms. Hamilton has done a nimble job of showing us how precarious the illusion of safety and security really is." —The New York Times "Hamilton's chillingly accurate prose keeps her fine novel buoyant. She is superb in her observation of the natural world and in her examination of psychological nuance." —The Washington Post "Like a lot of books singled out for praise, A Map of the World can be described as a page-turner. But in this case, the pages are turned with trembling hands." —People "This beautifully written story follows the form and function of all great literature: it assembles a gripping cast of sinners, sufferers, and opportunists, then gives them the settings and self-perceptions to hang or redeem themselves." —Glamour "Few writers have the courage to attempt a truly adult novel or the skill to produce one. Thankfully, Jane Hamilton is among them. A daring writer." —New York Daily News "The book is exquisite in its individual passages, compelling as a whole." —Women's Review of Books "Unforgettably, beat by beat, Hamilton maps the best and worst of the human heart and all the mysterious, uncharted country in between." —Kirkus Reviews "Hamilton's special genius lies in blending the quotidian and the mythic." —U.S. News & World Report "A beautifully developed and written story reminiscent of the work of Sue Miller and Jane Smiley.... One wants to read this powerful novel at one sitting." —Publishers Weekly "Engrossing, powerful." —Christian Science Monitor Praise for The Short History of a Prince "Irresistible.... As [Hamilton] evokes the powerful grip of love, both young and mature, cruel and ecstatic, she reaffirms life." —People "Subtle, moving, and utterly convincing." —Newsweek "Lovely in its appreciation of the resilience of family—Hamilton's plainsong to American endurance still lifts the heart." —Entertainment Weekly "With intelligence and empathy—and drawing on rich veins of irony—Hamilton tells the story of Walter's search to define his talents—at once surprising and redemptive." —The New York Times Book Review "Hamilton's third novel and arguably her best, for it matches its range of emotion with a technical precision both masterful and haunting—Hamilton has eased time and memory throughout her novel with the expert abandon of a dancer in full pirouette." —Boston Globe "[Hamilton] can make real life riveting—There can be no better recommendation for a novelist." —Denver Post "Few novelists portray real life and high art convincingly on the same page. The surprise here is that Hamilton, a gifted chronicler of the everyday, deftly combines the two...The Short History of a Prince is the most contemplative and languorous of her novels. It may also be her finest." —New York Daily News "There are no shocking dramas or earth-shattering revelations here. Perhaps that's why this lovely, witty book rings so true." —Mademoiselle "Jane Hamilton continues to use her considerable talent in the service of compassion.... Totally absorbing." —Dallas Morning News "Magically captures the anxious vulnerability of adolescence.... Jane Hamilton has crafted a lyrical family drama, and writes in beautiful, languid, descriptive sentences. Her vividly drawn characters seem familiar and real, like so many Polaroid snapshots." —Redbook "A wise and richly textured look at art and talent, family, friendship, and sexuality.... Hamilton writes with a compassion that is not only missing from so many other books, it is missing from the world, and therein lies much of the novel's beauty and importance." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Engrossing, beautifully written.... A story of not only being at a place where one can love and be loved, but of getting to that place." —Minneapolis Star Tribune "A novel that seeks to understand what it means to live a thoughtfully examined life. With hardly a false note or a word out of place, Hamilton has created one of the most believable and appealing characters in contemporary American fiction." —San Francisco Chronicle "Hamilton creates stories that are almost impossible to set aside. She has created living, breathing characters whom she knows inside and out—so we do, too." —Seattle Times "Hamilton brings to her third novel the same qualities of emotional integrity and compassionate understanding that distinguished The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World.... Rewards readers with a fully dimensional picture of evolving lives." —Publishers Weekly (starred) "A meditative, slow moving, and thoroughly absorbing family drama about loving, losing, and holding on to all we can. This is a lyrical, bighearted novel that won't easily be forgotten." —Kirkus Reviews (starred) "Readers love Hamilton not only for the beauty of her prose and the profundity of her storylines but also for her psychological precision and authorial benevolence.... [The] plot [is] involving and resonant, but it is Hamilton's extraordinary insights into human nature that make this novel shine as she transforms ordinary occurrences—a conversation, a prank, a moment of intimacy—into nothing less than intimations of the divine." —Booklist (starred) Praise for The Book of Ruth "An American beauty this book.... The narrator of Jane Hamilton's sensational first novel is a holy lusty innocent." —Vogue "A sly and wistful, if harrowing, human comedy. Hamilton is a new and original voice in fiction and one well worth listening to." —Boston Sunday Globe "Ms. Hamilton gives Ruth a humble dignity and allows her hope—but it's not a heavenly hope. It's a common one, caked with mud and held with gritted teeth. And it's probably the only kind that's worth reading about." —The New York Times Book Review "Hamilton's story builds to a shocking crescendo. Her small-town characters are a appealingly offbeat and brushed with grace as any found in Alice Hoffman's or Anne Tyler's novels." —Glamour "Jane Hamilton's novel is authentically Dickensian.... The real achievement of this first novel is not so much the blackness as the suggestion of resilience. At the end, Ruth begins to put together her shattered body, spirit and life. Her words are awkward, as they have been all along, but suddenly and unexpectedly they shine." —Los Angeles Times "A disturbing and beautiful book." —Hilma Wolitzer "An extraordinary story of a family's disintegration.... Will be compared to Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. Astonishingly vivid and moving." —People "An enthralling tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying ways of our lives." —Entertainment Weekly "Unforgettably, beat by beat, Hamilton maps the best and worst of the human heart and all the mysterious, uncharted country in between." —Kirkus Reviews Home  •  The Author  •  Bookshelf  •  Reading Groups  •  Praise  •  Newsletter © Copyright 2006 Doubleday/Anchor/Random House, Inc. | Privacy Policy | All rights reserved. Website and photography by Mary-Jo Valentino. Author photo © Kevin Horan.