To put it mildly, there has been a lot of hype around Prince Harry’s memoir, Back Up. (Did any book have more?) That alone might put you off reading the book. Perhaps the most palatable way to enjoy the prince’s hustle and bustle and war stories is through his audiobook told, as Harry says – with apparent pride and a touch of defiance – “By me, I am the author.”
With haters posting audio clips to social media, it might feel like you’ve already heard the book — the infamous frostbite section on the youngsters, the surreal loser’s virginity behind a bar paragraph. But what you might not catch in these and other easily-mocked-out passages is the kind of appealing humility that lies behind them, in which the Prince shows himself to be both self-denying and self-aware. Reading his own book, the Duke of Sussex comes across as an ordinary man who hasn’t always been able to live up to the extraordinary demands of his life and his family – and he knows it. He is willing to discuss his own stupidest mistakes, and does so with remorse, humor that subsides on its own, and a mitigation of patent. He had wanted to tell his truth for a long time.
From an early age, Harry has applied to him the basic rule of the monarchy, “The Family Motto”: Never Complain, Never Explain. Well, he had it. He now laments and explains in rich and righteous detail for 15 hours and 39 minutes. Finally, his side of the story.
Of course, Harry had help from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moringer, author of his excellent memoir, “The Tender Bar,” and ghostwriter for Andre Agassi and Phil Knight. Reading the book on paper, you might notice the literary influences—one-sentence paragraphs, very short chapters, the occasional fancy catchphrase or the five-dollar word—and have doubts about Harry’s contribution. But when you hear the Prince read the sentences aloud, it becomes clear how well Mohringer delivers Harry’s diction, cadence, vocabulary and perfect British phrasing, pigeon courses, pyros, men and the rest of it. We say Oregano, he says oreGAHno — which he actually takes a moment to point to aside.
Obviously, Harry had a great time reading his diary. He imitates his father’s clipped phrasing, belts out Elton John’s “Your Song,” and takes his best shot at imitating the Scottish brogues of his hunting mentor and the American accents of his fellow soldiers.
It even makes sounds with spunky sound effects. “We’ve come to the last wooden bridge, the frames that make the soothing lullaby I always associate with Scotland. Da dong, da dong… Da dong, dong.” He really does a good job on those dongs. His hoarse voice is easy to listen to, and he brings a lot of emotion to his reading. You hear the excitement when he comes upon his favorite stories, and the resentment when he hits the angry parts. His anger at the media, which he blames for his mother’s death and many of the worst moments in his life since, comes every time he says “pips,” the term he calls the paparazzi. His voice dripping with anger.
On the other hand, when he talks about his wife, he literally gushes, grinning brightly at his birth. When they set off for Botswana early on, he watched her open her suitcase: “Here it comes, I suppose. The mirror, the hair-dryer, the make-up kit, the fluffy duvet, and a dozen shoes… It shocked me. And, to my delight, there was nothing in that suitcase.” Nothing but the essentials. Shorts, ripped jeans and snacks. And a yoga mat.” “Every moment of that week was a blessing and a blessing,” Rhapsody continues.
But he also knows how to use simplification at key moments, for example in the scene when “Pa”, as Prince Charles calls him, wakes him up to tell him his mother has died – a tear-jerking scene that doesn’t milk him or ham up. “They tried, dear boy, I’m afraid it didn’t work. Those phrases stick in my mind like throwing darts at a blackboard.” There is no break in his voice, no emotions: only words.
It was another decade before he could fully accept himself that his mother was actually dead, not just hiding in the Alps. Even the police photos of the corpse didn’t quite convince him. Eventually, during a visit to Paris in 2007, he asked a taxi driver to take him to the accident site. “I had thought tunnel driving would end, or briefly stop, Pain, a decade of unrelenting pain. Instead, it led to the beginning of Pain, Part Deux.” When you read the words on the page, what you notice is the somewhat ironic phrasing. “Pain, Part Deux.” But when you hear the words out loud, you’ll notice the way he stressed the word “pain” three times. Here he gives it her due.
Apparently, Harry had plenty of good advice in the studio — 13 people were honored to help with the audiobook at Acknowledgments. Director Scott Sherratt worked on the self-reading memoirs of Bono, Jennifer Lopez, and Kim Kardashian. Prince isn’t exactly a novice either: He’s scored narration for short films promoting his causes and HIV awareness and conservation.
In short, if you think you can bear to hear more about it, I can guarantee you that it’s more fun to let Harry tell you his story than to read the words on the page.
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Marion Winick, professor at the University of Baltimore, hosts the NPR podcast “The Weekly Reader” and author of several books, including “First Comes Love” and “The Big Book of the Dead.”
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Written by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Random House Audio. 151/2 hours.