REVIEW
On Friday evening, I posted on social media that I was reading Prince Harry’s just published memoir Spare. The responses were intense.
I was astonished at how invested people are in this story, in the person, in the dynamic, and how polarised opinion is. There were hundreds of comments on my initial post, and it was clear that opinions have crystalised one way or another.
Let me say this for context – I am not a royalist at all. But I have followed the British royal family closely my entire life. I have always been intrigued by the peculiarity of the system and how it functions, or dysfunctions, really.
I have watched all the seasons of The Crown, watched all the Harry and Meghan interviews; followed the births of all the new princes and princesses. But I do not have firm opinions either way. I’m not Team Cambridge or Team Sussex. Just Team Curious.
My initial sense on reading the book was how well it was written.
It was compelling, poetic, beautifully crafted. This is no surprise, considering Harry’s ghost writer is JR Moehringer, who ghosted two of my all-time favourite memoirs, Andre Agassi’s _Open _and Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog.
When writing a memoir, especially a “tell all”, there is always a concern that the subject will fall short of delivering what the audience wants. This doesn’t happen in this instance. Harry goes all in. _Spare _is scorched earth, a dumpster fire, just putting it all out there, and I was shook!
The whole premise of how the royal family operates is that it is shrouded in secrecy and tradition to maintain the façade. It adds to the mystique and props up the notion that its members are not mere mortals somehow superior to their subjects. It is centuries in the making. We rarely get to see behind the palace walls.
The Crown pulled back the veil to a degree, but this memoir is an actual inside account. Harry details the minutia of family gatherings and conversations, character flaws and interpersonal dynamics. He wipes off the lustre they worked so hard to create. The image of King Charles III doing daily headstands in his boxer shorts to help ease his neck aches is an example of this.
But more so, it’s the intimacy of the personal conversations and face offs he has with his brother and father that seem such an intrusion. Even in a ‘regular’ family, making these public would be a violation. I imagine those will make the relationship with his family irreconcilable. Some may also think he goes too far with the talk of his frostbitten todger and his sexual escapades.
Overwhelmingly, the book has an undertone of deep grief. Diana haunts the pages and is a constant throughout, with the trauma of her death having stalked Harry throughout his life.
The account of how his father broke the news to him as a 12-year-old, tapped him on the knee and then left him on his own for hours to make sense of what had happened reminds you of how very dysfunctional this family and institution really is. No one hugs him or asks him how he is for years. He almost never cries. He isn’t given the tools to deal with it.
As his therapist concludes years later as he lies on her green couch, Harry remains stuck in 1997 for the rest of his life. Moehringer so effectively uses the device of jarring mental memories from Diana’s funeral, the union jack on her coffin, to emphasise this. It’s easy to conclude Freudian Oedipus, etc.
Harry has been clear that the book is an opportunity to put his version of events out there, and when he details the extensive lying by the tabloids, the printing of clear falsehoods, the hurtful and demeaning attacks, the invasive ‘papping’ of his family, the collusion and lack of protection from The Firm, you can understand how he was pushed to this point.
The media coverage of _Spare _has really distorted what he writes in the book. One example of this is what he says about TV presenter Caroline Flack, who he briefly dated, has been completely misinterpreted in the newspapers. Another is his comments about killing Taliban fighters, which have been grossly taken out of context.
The main argument from critics has been that he is jealous of his brother (it’s constantly weird to hear him refer to him as Willy throughout the book). There is a strong theme of identity and this casting of ‘The Heir’ and ‘The Spare’ which Harry struggles to deal with as it appears insensitively managed. It does translate as jealousy to a degree, but there is also the disconnect between the two brothers and the chasm grows over the years, largely over innocuous issues.
Then there’s the argument that it’s a bit laughable that a royal is complaining about not getting the bigger room or better house, or that his dad cuts him off financially and with security. Harry does address all of this, and his argument is largely sound in my view, but I can see how it will ring hollow with those who have already formed an opinion. He speaks about the gilded cage; how “royal fame was fancy captivity”.
All in all, I found the book to be authentic, raw and vulnerable. It is intimate, and honest, and sad.
But as is the case with memoir, it is Harry’s version, and he is open about how trauma and grief have impacted his memory of events and timelines. I have no doubt that Willy’s account would be vastly different, and we will likely never know, because I can’t imagine that one ever hitting the shelves.
If you are not a fan, the extent of his openness will make you less of one. But you should read it before you make a judgment (although at R559, the price is pretty hefty).
I do think that this insight into the royal family will contribute to the erosion of the public’s support of the institution, and further ignite the debate on whether it is necessary and appropriate in today’s age, or if it out of touch and archaic.
It should also force tabloid media to introspect and be held accountable for how it behaves – but that is unlikely to happen.
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