Spare by Prince Harry of Wales is written in a three-act structure—his childhood, his military experience, and his relationship with Meghan. The nearly sixteen-hour delivery of the memoir is read in the Duke of Sussex’s own voice. It explores the collision between royal reality and royal fantasy through the life of a backup Prince.
The book narrates how, at twelve, when Prince Harry learned of the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a car crash, he believed that she’d gone into hiding from the Press to make a fresh start, and she would soon send for him. He and his brother, Prince William, fourteen at the time, were asked to walk behind their mother’s casket, but weren’t allowed to cry in public. That, however, paled in comparison to how the ceremony ended for the poor boys, shaking hands and consoling mourners in public.
The book stresses how the shock of his mother’s death continued to haunt him for a decade. He remained convinced that she was not dead, despite his aunt Sarah giving him and his brother locks of their mother’s hair, and despite him witnessing her burial. He didn’t cry, except once, when he watched her casket lowered into the ground on the Althorp Estate. He couldn’t hold the tears in any longer and had felt ashamed of violating the family ethos. No one around comforted him. He had to comfort himself, by reassuring himself that there weren’t any cameras around. For a long time, he would feel guilty for not crying more than once.
We see how this complicated grief extended from childhood into adulthood, impacting and determining the course of his life. He would struggle with unresolved grief, loss of memories of his mother, a deep sense of loneliness, anger at the British press, difficulty learning at school due to PTSD, and being spotlighted as the villain royal. These struggles would push him to abuse alcohol and indulge in drugs in a bid to numb the pain. At twenty, he would ask to review the police reports that finally helped him to gain closure that his mother had indeed died. At twenty-one, he would find refuge from his pain in the British Army for a decade, which included two tours of duty in Afghanistan. When his army helicopter instructor mentioned that he seemed to not be ‘terribly concerned by dying’, he would explain that he hadn’t been ‘afraid of death since the age of twelve.’
The memoir gives insight into the royal reality that people could never have dreamt of. Despite being a Prince, Harry ate fast-food, shopped for discounted items at TK Maxx, dried his clothes on the radiator, bought furniture at IKEA, and binge-watched Friends. He was even mocked on social media for his mismatched outfits, his ratty shoes, and his crumpled shirts, which according to him were not very princely.
Through the book, we see how highly dysfunctional the British Royal Family is. Prince Harry was left alone for hours in his room right after his father told him his mother had died, and instead of a hug, he got a pat on a knee. This seemed to be normal in the family as showing emotions under normal circumstances was frowned upon. The following morning, he would attend church service where a single prayer wasn’t offered for the repose of his mother’s soul, leaving him wondering if the Vicar had forgotten. Soon after the burial, he would be sent back to boarding school without grief counselling. The school institution, that had been warned about consoling him, would also not arrange for counselling either.
Spare paints a shocking picture, a ‘fancy captivity’ like Prince Harry himself called his royal life. We see how terrible his father is at parenting. Prince Charles referred to him as a spare, joked that he might not be his real son, and leaked damaging stories about him to the tabloid press to improve his own ‘heir’ popularity and reputation. We see sibling rivalry with his elder brother Prince William who bullies him. William is possessive of Harry and wants control over him. Despite being the heir, William is jealous of Harry’s freedom as the Spare. Unlike himself, Harry was allowed to escape to Africa whenever he wanted, combat in wars that made him a hero, marry someone who doesn’t fit the royal mould, and keep his beard for his wedding. William, however, doesn’t want Harry to have the things a spare is allowed, because he as an heir isn’t allowed to have them. William, who has a bad temper, threw tantrums when Harry, who he expected to be loyal at all times, didn’t obey his orders as the heir. He bickered when Harry and Meghan didn’t give his family Easter presents, rowed over Africa with Harry as they split offices and charity works, recoiled when Meghan tried to hug him instead of taking a bow, and physically attacked Harry over an argument about Meghan.
We discover how the British Monarchy got into bed with the British tabloids in order to discredit one another with lies and damaging stories. The leaking between the royals is quite appalling, setting the stage for all manners of incomprehensible drama. Prince Charles leaked against his sons. William against Harry and Meghan. We learn to mistrust everything we read, and to discredit our own conspiracy theories formulated from untrue information we’ve been fed by the British tabloid journalism. We realise that Harry and his brother have had a fractured relationship since the death of their mother. Harry wrote that he learned about William’s engagement to Kate at the same time as the public when it was published in the papers. We learn that they weren’t each other’s best men at their respective weddings as published in the tabloids, and that Meghan didn’t receive support from royal advisors when she suffered cruel and racist attacks at the hands of the British press. Harry blames the paparazzi for his mother’s death. He accused them of hacking his phone, tracking his movements, and stalking his girlfriends. He also denounced their mistreatment of his wife, fearing that history would repeat itself, making her a victim, like his mother.
Spare shows what it’s like to be born with a silver spoon but raised in emotional poverty. I recommend it to anyone whose childhood was shattered by a traumatic loss, anyone who is dealing with complicated grief, anyone who is experiencing sibling competitiveness, anyone who comes from a dysfunctional family, and most of all, everyone looking to learn a lesson or two from the effects of all these.