Elegant and reproving ... Most compelling as a postcard from the siblings’ nursery, where their bond was solidified ... Even with all its bitterness toward bad actors, like the deceptive Diana interviewer Martin Bashir, this is a lyrical book that delights in moments of the British absurd.
A fascinating document that tells us a little about Diana and a great deal about Charles Spencer – perhaps more than we needed to know. If that sounds snarky, after 400 pages of score settling, chest thumping, wild indiscretion and some truly touching passages about his late sister, the reader is left with a head-spinning story of the world that created Diana and a certain sourness at the manner in which it is told ... For fans of petty grievances, among whom I count myself, the book is an absolute corker of resentment ... Interspersed with these delights is a portrait of Diana that is affectionate, sad, and lovely in places ... Still, the book suffers from problems of self pity and self regard.
It’s a plum pudding of revelations, enlivened by the piquant sauce of revenge. For what it’s worth, the book is well written, the Earl being the author of nine previous books ... Forget about revenge being best served cold; turns out it’s even better aged for thirty years.
If the rest of the family are brought into sharp, unforgiving focus, William and Harry are kept at telephoto distance and are sketched with a soft-focus reverence that portrays them as perpetual icons of childhood innocence rather than real flesh-and-blood men ... As chewy as all this dynastic drama is, Spencer has a deeper project: a reckoning with the aristocratic omerta that governs British upper-class life ... Although you can sometimes feel Spencer straining to capture his sister...what makes Swan Song compelling is that he writes entirely as himself ... The danger for Spencer is that he might have overplayed his hand and transformed real human suffering into theatrical score-settling.
