Diana in Pursuit of Love by Andrew Morton
Published by Michael O’Mara Books Limited, 2004

This book is a horror story. It is the first book in the Diana industry that I have read from cover to cover and realised that it deals with a feeling, thinking, unhappy human being trying to get on with her life. Like most of the world, I followed the saga of the “War of the Waleses” and it’s sequel “What Diana did next” in various magazines and newspapers with the same interest I had in following the vicissitudes of a soap opera character performing for my entertainment. I didn’t see Diana as a young woman whose marriage had broken down and who was really suffering because of this.

Andrew Morton has already published three books on Diana. This latest offering, to a certain extent, outlines the cynical manipulation and deceit used during her life-time to convince Diana to co-operate with the previous stories. We learn that Diana didn’t trust her husband, his family or his employees and feared for her life. We also learn that any chance of peace breaking out between the divorcing couple was very definitely discouraged by ‘friends’ and ‘advisers’ with personal agendas and interests in maintaining a state of ill-will between the couple. The same media who deified Diana after her death were the ones who clamoured to get photos of her as she lay dying, and who, when she was alive, pried in to her personal life with intolerable intrusiveness just to get an exclusive headline.

The horror element for me was the realisation that in reading this book I am contributing to the continued exploitation of Diana’s life for no good reason whatsoever, other than to make money or grab headlines for somebody. The British Parliament has recently banned fox hunting – perhaps it might be more fitting for everybody to ban celebrity hunting and the exploitation of vulnerable people and their memories.

Reviewed by a Clare County Library Staff member.