I’m no slouch when it comes to memoirs.
I would describe myself as a memoirist who has read the diaries, autobiographies, or journals of nearly every celebrity published in the last 100 years, including Hollywood celebrities, playboys, and politicians.
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The Diary of my own father, the late politician and News of the World columnist Woodrow Wyatt, was published posthumously in 2000.
Not all of our friends were tickled.
Then there’s my favorite, My Wicked Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn.
But few have the vulgarity to surpass the memoirs written by Harry.
Spares nobody spares spares.
Vulgarity flashes in the sombre intervals of malice, so much so that it’s hard to believe that someone with relatively civilized feelings, let alone an Eton-educated tough, produced it.
From his graphic portrayal of Harry’s loss of virginity and use of illegal drugs, to his reflection on his wife’s suit-wearing sex scene, Spare is strangely the star of Hollywood pump jockey Scotty Bowers’ 2013 shocker Full Service: In Hollywood. My Adventures and Stars’ Secret Sex Life. .
Much of the information on Spare is not something I want to participate in.
I have no intention of gifting the book to my faint-hearted maiden aunt.
It’s vulgar research that not so long ago would have belonged in a bookstore section marked “adult”.
I’m no Puritan or disrespectful, but what I didn’t expect from the Duke of Sussex was a book that could go up for the 2023 “Bad Sex Awards.”
Lines such as “She used me like a stallion” (description of Harry’s outdoor sex with an older woman outside a pub) would make any self-respecting pornographer blush with shame, leaving him would have made him reconsider his career.
To be fair, the Duke of Sussex hired a ghost writer.
But what many think of themselves as talent or wit is just empty flamboyance and a desire for admiration.
We know that Harry’s desire for the latter has become almost unconscious.
But what kind of fame does he want now?
Oscar Wilde once said that books are neither moral nor immoral. They are either well written or poorly written, and that’s it.
By that standard alone, Spare is one of the worst books ever published.
It is also one of the most embarrassing, giving the impression of a life lived in grotesque futility, whether wrong or right. Fights, sex, drugs, boastful accounts of killings, and a complete lack of empathy.
The Duke has established himself as a role model for young people. He should reconsider this role.
Spare is a breathtakingly sordid and trashy book in a genre full of competition.
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