I enjoyed this book. It's extremely well ghost-written by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist J. R. Moehringer, and it shows.
I'm not much of a royalist. Think it would be better if we had the kind of low key monarchy that you find in other parts of Europe, instead of ours with all its pomp and circumstance and hangers on. But the thought of an elected President Johnson is discouraging.
All the same, I have a great deal of sympathy for Harry and his wife. I know the royals are immensely privileged but the price for this young man, at least, seems to have been just too much to bear. I am, of course, pretty much alone in this among my friends. Even - or perhaps especially - among the dyed-in-the-wool royalists, who will never read the book.
Meghan had a raw deal from the media. It's not hard to find the evidence, if you look for it. Everything from the crazy comparisons between Meghan and her saintly sister-in-law to the exploitation of her rather vulnerable father. But even I, approaching this story with a certain amount of sympathy, didn't realise the full extent of the press intrusion on Harry, from the day of his birth, through the death of his mother, to the present day. Comparisons with other members of the family make no sense when it comes to the 'spare' - Diana's son. Privacy is an impossibility when the press are determined to hunt you down. Even in the army, (where among other things he learned to fly a helicopter in record time) the media found him, casually and deliberately exposed his presence, and carelessly put those serving with him at risk.
There was and remains no way in which this couple and their children could ever maintain the kind of low, private profile that people keep telling me should have been their aim. Maybe it should, but the media simply won't allow it. Therefore, the only option is to come out fighting. It may not be advisable. But it's all too human.
This is the story of a sweet natured boy, who lost his mother in an appalling and public way at a young age and who has been unable to properly process that bereavement. Who has never been allowed to process that bereavement. Whose every adolescent and young adult error has been picked over by the world's press and is resurrected at every opportunity. No saint, no demon, no fool either. If a dysfunctional family is one where 'there's no open space to express your thoughts and feelings freely' then the Royals certainly are dysfunctional, and Harry has seldom been allowed any space at all.
Incidentally, and inexplicably, his father and his brother seem to persist in calling him Harold, when his name is Henry. As in God for Harry, etc, etc. That Henry. So why? It doesn't sound much like a pet name, an affectionate family nickname. The only Harold that springs to mind for an oldie like me (and, presumably, Charles too) is young Steptoe, stymied at every turn by a demanding father.
We're on Team Harry in this house.
Read the book. You might just find it enlightening.
