The Diana Chronicles

June 4, 2007
Princess Diana was "the best thing to happen" to the British royals "since the restoration of Charles II," concludes Brown in this dishy biography, and the royal family's error was not realizing that. It's tough to pigeonhole a peacock, but Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, tries, calling the late Diana a diva, "a siren of subversion" who "even as a small girl... had been dangerous when hurt." Brown shows how Diana excelled at manipulating the media; her in-laws could only stand by helplessly as she captivated the cameras by batting her eyes or lowering them in her trademark "Shy Di" look. So enamored of herself was Diana, according to Brown, that she claimed not to understand why a certain cardiologist preferred his work at the hospital to seeing after her. Brown interviewed more than 250 people, from Mikhail Baryshnikov (who found the late Princess "so much more beautiful than any photographs or TV") to a friend of Diana's late mother, who says that mum disapproved of her daughter's too hasty royal marriage and tried talking her out of it. In the battle of unpleasant revelations made by both sides in the Di-Charles battles, Brown speculates that Squidgy-gate was the product of MI5 bugging the royal phones. Brown gives her book a tabloid-lingo touch and can fall into melodrama (while everyoneo saw Di's life as a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, the author says, it "was becoming more like something out of Hitchcock"), but then, given the nature of the subject matter, a little melodrama is entirely fitting. However, the final portrait of Diana as a heroine who broke free of the royal bonds and changed the monarchy forever will be familiar to most readers.

June 18, 2007
Princess Diana was "the best thing to happen" to the British royals "since the restoration of Charles II," concludes Brown in this dishy biography, and the royal family's error was not realizing that. It's tough to pigeonhole a peacock, but Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, tries, calling the late Diana a diva, "a siren of subversion" who "even as a small girl... had been dangerous when hurt." Brown shows how Diana excelled at manipulating the media; her in-laws could only stand by helplessly as she captivated the cameras by batting her eyes or lowering them in her trademark "Shy Di" look. So enamored of herself was Diana, according to Brown, that she claimed not to understand why a certain cardiologist preferred his work at the hospital to seeing after her. Brown interviewed more than 250 people, from Mikhail Baryshnikov (who found the late Princess "so much more beautiful than any photographs or TV") to a friend of Diana's late mother, who says that mum disapproved of her daughter's too hasty royal marriage and tried talking her out of it. In the battle of unpleasant revelations made by both sides in the Di-Charles battles, Brown speculates that Squidgy-gate was the product of MI5 bugging the royal phones. Brown gives her book a tabloid-lingo touch and can fall into melodrama (while everyoneo saw Di's life as a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, the author says, it "was becoming more like something out of Hitchcock"), but then, given the nature of the subject matter, a little melodrama is entirely fitting. However, the final portrait of Diana as a heroine who broke free of the royal bonds and changed the monarchy forever will be familiar to most readers.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2007
Is this a total dis job? Does the former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker do a number on the late Princess of Wales, whom she counted as a friend? That is hardly Browns intention; her well-researched, well-considered biography is responsible, eloquent, and honest. And if honesty means she calls things as she sees them pertaining to theincreasingly darker aspects of Dianas out-of-control side, then Brown exhibits no hesitation in doing so. Her lack of trepidation in both crediting Diana for her accomplishmentsin her difficult role as wife of the heir to the throne and drawing negative conclusions about Dianas difficulties in performing that roleachieves an understanding of Diana no author hasreached before. Brown fathoms the needy girl never loved enough; she grasps the reasons for the collision of this outsider spirit with a royal family slow on the uptake in terms of todays omnipresent mediaand the rising cult of celebrity, which, in Browns words, is now the coin of the realm. Diana knew how to manipulate the press, of course, but she had a tiger by the tail; if she let go of the media game she had created around herself, it could destroy her. Brimming with new information and insights, thisbook on the unfortunate Princess of Walesis not just for the season butwill last for a long time to come.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)