The Way We Were

September 11, 2006
Princess Diana's butler presents his second book of recollections on the famous royal whose life fascinated the media and whose death bereaved countless strangers. Though early pages are forebodingly plain, Burrell moves from a self-conscious chronicle of the princess (and her friend the butler) to sincere, heartfelt reportage of Diana's bravery as she soldiers through life post-royal divorce and finds a new life's mission helping the helpless across the world. More to the point, Burrell gets dishy: one bittersweet chapter tells of the modest and brilliant heart surgeon whom Burrell insists was Diana's true love, while another examines the complex relationship between the princess and Fergie, the Duchess of York, with asides on the Queen Mother, the Queen and Charles. Much is made of Diana's love for her sons and her search for truths to live by, which Burrell believes propelled her to "an emotional coming-of-age" before the end of her brief life. Though there's nothing particularly revelatory here, Burrell's heavily-covered subject matter benefits from his obvious and genuine affection ("She was real. She was breathtakingly so, and it was the one quality that hit people between the eyes more than any other when they met her"), making this an endearing, if perhaps superfluous, testament.