Book: Diana, Her True Story

Diana: Her True Story - In Her Own Words
by Andrew Morton

Length: 432

Format: Paperback
Price: free from the library

How I heard: I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about my obsession with the British royal family, but it’s been a real thing since August 31, 1997. (If you aren’t familiar with significant royal dates, that is the day Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris.) I was not obsessed with Disney princesses, nor can I claim a particular affinity for celebrities, but there was something completely fascinating about that entire ordeal, and like much of the rest of the world, I was sucked in. I read everything I could get my hands on. I watched news reports. I remember sitting in my EO in eighth grade and watching the coverage on Channel 1. I remember saving my money and buying People magazine and Time magazine and Newsweek. (I also remember my brother making fun of my obsession and drawing all over the cover of one of the magazines. My parents made him go buy me a new one. Score!) My social studies teacher offered an extra credit assignment in which we could write a summation of any news story that took place during the school year. Although I didn’t need the extra credit, I took the opportunity to write a lengthy essay without doing a scrap of research.

When the movie The Queen came out in theaters, my husband very thoughtfully took me to see it, and then bought me the movie for Christmas. When Prince William got engaged, I woke up early to watch the wedding. And when I discovered the TV show “The Crown” on Netflix, I did a little else until the first season was finished, and I have been waiting with bated breath for December 8th. And when I discovered a series of documentaries on the queen and her family to celebrate 100 years of the house of Windsor... well, you get it.

All that said, I decided to read a biography on the queen and so I started browsing shelves at the public library. However, before I could find one I liked, I stumbled upon Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton. Of course, I was familiar with this title from my Diana days. It was the shocking biography released in 1992 that ruffled all sorts of feathers within the royal family and without. Though her involvement was officially kept secret until after her death (though rumors were rife), the forward of the 25th anniversary edition reveals covert efforts to smuggle recordings from Diana’s home at Kensington Palace to Andrew Morton via a mutual friend. Since book was on the shelf, I thought would give it a try.

My Take: 6/10

As one might predict, it is not first class writing. At times it felt as though Morton was lost in the story he was telling, repeating himself and struggling to find a thread that would carry him through and bring cohesion to the isolated incidents he was reporting. As he was a news correspondent writing a biography, perhaps we should forgive him this.

Aside from the sporadic style, the book itself was interesting because after the forward, there were transcripts of the tapes in this edition. What can be read there is as close to an autobiography as there will ever be. In this addition, there is also information about the years that followed the book’s publication, which includes the divorce, her controversial work on the landmines campaign in Africa, and of course, her death, funeral, and the rather embarassing reaction of the royal family. With my recent rewatch of “The Crown,” these details were made all the more interesting.

Sister was very taken with the cover of this book. I think she thought Diana was pretty. She asked me who she was, and when I explained, she asked me to read the book out loud to her. I read some small sections, and when we had to give the book back to the library, she asked if we could go buy it. I told her no, but I did purchase this for her for Christmas:

Overall, this wasn’t a great book, but I can see why it caused such a “fuss.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off reading about Prince Harry’s engagement. (Which, if you want to know, is completely interesting in itself, because when his great great uncle wanted to marry an American divorcée 80 years ago, he had to abdicate, and when Harry’s great aunt wanted to marry a British divorcee 20 years after, she was refused. What a difference a few generations can make!)